Camp Scientist
by SharkLord Productions
Summary: On the last day of school, Calvin discovers that his mom is sending him to a summer camp! While there Calvin must deal with physical activities, hiking, most of his classmates from school, and a weird girl with a robot friend. However, something more sinister than everyone realizes is going on here... (Complete!)
1. End of School, Start of Camp

**Author's Note: Sorry for the couple-months-long hiatus. I was beginning to get kinda bored with The Shapeshifter From Space, and after I finished it, I kinda forgot about writing fanfiction. I wanted to continue around December, but Super Smash Bros Ultimate came out and took over most of my life, then Christmas came and I got a new game or two, and then I went out and stayed at a couple of hotels without bringing my computer, but now that's all done and I can get back to writing. I'd also like to add that this isn't connected to The Shapeshifter From Space at all, since I felt that one could use a major rewrite, so you don't have to read that one. If you have read that one, you can disregard it. Now that I've finished rambling, on with the show!**

 **EDIT: So. It's been a while, and I've decided to give some of the older chapters a bit of a rewrite. Nothing too major, just bringing some of the weaker bits up to speed. I don't have too much of a schedule, so just put this on your checklist and drop by whenever you get a notification. After all that's done, maybe I'll make a sequel or something. In the meantime, you can check out what I'm doing on Fantendo. I'll see you there!**

* * *

It was a peaceful, sunny summer day. It was the last day of school, and it was only a matter of time before the children got home and loudly celebrated. However, school was still in progress, and until they got home, their parents were enjoying the peace.

Just then, a yellow school bus drove up to the sidewalk next to a little two-story house, and it's doors opened. Suddenly, a six-year-old with blond, spiky hair and a red shirt with stripes burst out of the bus at high speed, laughing like a loon.

"I'M FREE!" he shouted. "I'M FINALLY FREE! YOU USED TO CAGE ME AND LECTURE ME ALL YOU WANTED, BUT THOSE DAYS ARE OVER! I'M FREEEEEE!"

Well then. So much for peace.

The bus driver simply rolled his eyes as Calvin continued to loudly yell from the sidewalk, and drove the bus to it's next stop.

"YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT!" Calvin shouted as he walked toward the door to his home. "DRIVE AWAY WITH YOUR TAIL BETWEEN YOUR LEGS! FOREVER YOU WILL KNOW THAT YOU HAVE FAILED, FOR I AM CALVIN THE-"

As he opened the door, Calvin was abruptly cut off by a blur of orange and black bursting out of the doorway and slamming into him, sending them both flying across the front yard.

Calvin was dazed for a moment, before shaking his head and discovering that his attacker was none other than Hobbes. For those not in the know, Hobbes was Calvin's best and most constant friend, despite all the fights they got into. Also, Hobbes just so happened to be a tiger with a pair of opposable thumbs and the ability to stand on two legs. At the moment, he was busy laughing his head off.

Calvin glared as he stood up, brushing dust and dirt from the impact off himself. He left Hobbes behind to finish laughing as he entered his house.

* * *

Calvin's mom was in the living room, sitting on the couch and reading a book, when she heard the shouting and the sound of a door opening that signaled her son returning from school. She sighed.

' _Guess it's time to tell him the news.'_ she thought.

She stood up and walked over to the kitchen, where she found that her son, for whatever reason, looked beaten up and covered in dirt, like he always seemed to be when he came back to school. She had given up trying to figure out the reason behind this a long time ago. Whenever she asked what had happened, the most she'd get out of him was something along the lines of "Sometimes I wish I had a gerbil instead."

"Hi, Calvin." said Mom. "I see you're back from school."

Upon hearing those words, Calvin seemed to have a sudden burst of energy.

"Yes, I have escaped that wretched prison forever! Hahaha!"

Mom tried her best not to roll her eyes.

"Calvin," she said, "I have something important to tell you."

"What?" asked Calvin. "Have scientists discovered a way to revive dinosaurs?"

"No, it's not that." replied Mom.

"Have alien forces begun their invasion to enslave humanity?"

"No, Calvin."

"Is there an outbreak of a deadly plague that turns you into a ravenous, flesh-eating zombie?

"No, Calvin."

"Has Christmas come early?"

Mom sighed. "Calvin, I've signed you up for a summer camp." She handed him a pamphlet, which he accepted and looked at.

"Oh," said Calvin. "Huh. I thought it was actually something important." And with that, he turned and walked away.

Mom blinked as a look of surprise appeared on her face, and she took an involuntary step back without realizing it. For a kid who absolutely hated rules and education with every fiber in his body, Calvin was taking the news alarmingly well. Was there something wrong with him?

It was then Mom's words registered to Calvin, and he turned and let out a loud "WHAAAAAAT?!"

Mom sighed, partially out of relief. There was nothing wrong with him. Well, nothing wrong by Calvin standards, at least.

However, this meant that there would be a lot of screaming and shouting from the spiky-haired boy. Lots and lots of shouting.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Calvin shouted. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"

"Calvin-" Mom began.

"I JUST GOT OUT OF SCHOOL! I WAS FORCED TO SIT IN A CLASSROOM FIVE DAYS A WEEK FOR ALMOST TEN WEEKS!"

" _Calvin_ -" Mom tried again.

"YOU'RE DEPRIVING ME OF MY RIGHTS! MY FREEDOM! MY LIBERTY! MY-"

"CALVIN!" Mom shouted, cutting Calvin off. That certainly got his attention.

Mom knelt down to Calvin's level. "Look, Calvin, I know you don't like this, but sometimes in life you have to do things that you don't want to do. Besides, you might actually have some fun there."

"It has school in the name. School is not fun. Therefore, summer school is not going to be fun." Calvin retorted.

Mom sighed. "You should probably start packing for the trip."

As Calvin began walking to his room, Mom said to him, "Also, it's a summer _camp_ , not a summer _school_."

* * *

Hobbes was laying on Calvin's bed, reading a comic book, when Calvin walked through the door with a very unhappy look on his face.

"You certainly took your time coming up here." Hobbes said.

"Oh, shut up." Calvin grumbled. "Mom's sending me off to summer school, and I need you to get off your furry behind and help me pack."

Hobbes raised an eyebrow as Calvin took out a little blue-and-green backpack and started cramming all sorts of assorted objects into it.

"Why should I?" he asked. "I've already got comfortable here, and you never said anything about _me_ going. Besides, it's a summer _camp_ , not a summer _school_. You should really learn to remember this kind of stuff."

Calvin glared at him as he continued putting whatever he felt was necessary into his backpack. "If I'm going to suffer, you're coming with me. We're all in this together."

Hobbes grumbled. "I don't see why I should let you bring me to a place where I'll suffer."

"Oh, and one more thing." Calvin said.

"What?" asked Hobbes.

"I packed all the tuna in the house."

"WHAT?"

"I _said_ , I packed all the tuna in the house!"

"But how?" asked Hobbes. "We just got more tuna two days ago!"

"I've been working on creating a little pocket dimension where I can store all my stuff." Calvin explained, with a noticeable amount of pride in his voice. He gestured to the backpack. "You know, in case we have to go somewhere and we need to bring the essentials. So far, I've managed to get this thing to be much bigger on the inside, but not to the level of 'Infinite storage dimension.'"

"Oh joy." Hobbes said. "Now he can bring all the tuna in the house with him wherever he goes. Either I go with him, or I have no tuna."

"Take your pick, Hobbes." Calvin said smugly.

Hobbes considered his options for a moment. "Well, I think we still have some salmon left..."

"Also packed." Calvin said.

"What about the swordfish?"

"Packed that one too."

"The mahi-mahi?"

"Yep."

"Even the sardines?"

"Even the sardines." Calvin said. "I've got every fish in the house in here." He patted the backpack, grinning smugly.

Hobbes groaned. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

"Nope!"

With a sigh, Hobbes reluctantly went to help Calvin pack for summer camp.

* * *

Later that day, Calvin's neighbor Susie was having a tea party with her toys in her yard. Susie had brown, neatly combed hair, and was wearing overalls over her shirt, both of which were purple. Susie was smart, polite, orderly, and took school seriously-In other words, the complete opposite of Calvin. Naturally, she and Calvin were on opposite sides most of the time. Still, there were times when they got along together, though these times were rare.

When Susie saw Calvin walking up the sidewalk with a sour expression on his face, she knew that this probably wasn't going to be one of those times.

"Hi, Calvin." she said. "Is there something wrong?"

"Why, yes, Susie." Calvin responded. "There _is_ something wrong: I'M GOING TO SUMMER SCHOOL!"

Susie blinked. "Oh." she said.

"OF ALL THE INJUSTICES MY MOTHER HAD TO FORCE UPON ME, IT WAS SENDING ME TO SUMMER CAMP!" Calvin continued to rant. "IT'S AN OUTRAGE! A VIOLATION OF MY RIGHTS! WHY, I'VE GOT HALF A MIND TO-"

"I thought you were going to summer school?" asked Susie, interrupting Calvin's loud rant.

Calvin blinked. "Pardon?" he asked.

"You said you were going to summer school, but then you said summer camp instead." Susie explained.

"No, I'm pretty sure I said I was going to summer camp the whole time" Calvin told her.

Susie sighed, knowing that Calvin would never admit that he was wrong. "Anyways, which camp are you going to?"

"Oh," said Calvin. "I don't know. Mom gave me a pamphlet, but I think I dropped it in my bout of panic..."

Susie tried her best not to roll her eyes.

"Oh, you say you got the pamphlet for me? Thanks, Hobbes!" Calvin said to his stuffed tiger Hobbes, which Susie just noticed that he had been carrying around.

Calvin opened the pamphlet and read it. "It says here that the place is called 'Camp Scientist.'"

"Camp Scientist?" Susie asked. "That's the same summer camp I go to."

"WHAT!?" Calvin shouted.

Susie nodded. "A lot of people at our school go there, actually. There's me, Candace, Ronald, Jessica..."

Suddenly, a new, yet familiar voice reached their ears. "Hey, Twinky!"

Calvin's face immediately blanched. He recognized that voice, and it never meant anything good. His fears were confirmed as Moe, the local school bully, trudged up the sidewalk towards him.

Moe was big, buff, and, quite frankly, not too smart. Still, he was big and buff, and his favorite pastime was pounding smaller kids into the closest wall, and that was generally enough of an incentive for everyone to steer clear of him. He wore a black T-shirt with a skull on it, and his hair covered his eyes. No, I don't know how he sees through that haircut. Don't ask.

Anyways, back to the story. Moe walked up to Calvin, a grin on his face. "I heard you're going to the same summer camp that I got to."

"Is the camp you go to, by any chance, called 'Camp Scientist?'" asked Calvin nervously. "Because that's the camp that I'm going to."

"Yup!" said Moe. "Have fun getting pounded into bean paste for a week! Hahaha!"

As Moe walked away, Calvin sank to his knees. "I'm doomed."

"Hey, it's not like it's all bad, right?" Susie said. "I'm sure the counselors will stop any bullying at the camp."

Calvin, now lying facedown of the cement, repeated a muffled, " _Doooomed_."

* * *

It was bedtime, and Calvin was laying in his bed, wide awake.

"I can't sleep, Hobbes." Calvin said. "I can't stop thinking of the summer camp. Who knows what they're going to do to me there."

"Don't forget that you're dragging me there by bringing all the fish in the house with you." Hobbes grumbled. "Now I have to go there with you, and now I can't sleep thinking about the camp either."

"At least were all in this together." Calvin pointed out.

Without much left to say, the two settled for staring up at the ceiling together.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** **Yeah, I know, that was kinda short. Don't worry, the next chapters are quite a fair bit longer. This was more of a setup get you hooked for what comes next. Hope your interest has been piqued with this, and that you'll keep reading 'till the end. See you next time!**


	2. Welcome to Camp Scientist

**Author's Note: And I'm back again. This chapter should introduce you to a couple of OCs I made. Expect them to show up a lot in my fanfics. On a side note, I've decided to give Calvin the last name Watterson, and I also gave his parents names for the sake of the story-Tom for Dad, and Melissa for Mom, because it's going to get kind of awkward to write their dialogue if they only call each other "dear" or "honey" or some other pet names. They still will use those terms at some points, though, and will mostly be referred to as Mom and Dad. This _is_ still Calvin's story, after all.**

 **Now that that's all over with, we can finally get on with the story. Read away.**

* * *

"CALVIN!"

Calvin groaned. It was morning, and his mom was calling for him from downstairs. Unfortunately, Calvin's brain was still in sleep mode, and refused to send the rest of his body the message for it to get up. He pulled the blanket over his head and tried to sleep some more.

"CALVIN, GET UP!" His mother continued to shout from the floor below. Calvin tried to bury himself deeper into the bed.

"THIS IS THE LAST TIME, CALVIN!"

"Just get up, Calvin." Hobbes grumbled. "I want to sleep."

With a loud, noisy groan, Calvin flung the blankets off of him.

"FINE." he said. "But you agreed to coming with me, so you need to get up, too."

Hobbes stretched and yawned, then put on his best "dead inside" face. "I was hoping you'd forget that."

"What?" asked Calvin, who had begun putting his clothes on.

"Nothing." muttered Hobbes.

"IF YOU AREN'T DOWN HERE IN A MINUTE, I'M COMING UP THERE MYSELF!" Mom shouted.

Wisely, Calvin and Hobbes began to pick up the pace.

* * *

Mom watched as Calvin trudged down the stairs, still half-asleep. His backpack was slung over his shoulder, and he was carrying his little tiger doll that he brought everywhere in a way that his mother secretly thought was adorable, but wouldn't admit it to anyone.

"You're certainly energetic this morning." she noted.

"If only he got up at this hour sooner." Calvin's dad noted.

"Dear!" Mom said.

"I don't see any problem with it." Dad said. "I always start my morning at 6 o'clock AM. I take a nice, brisk jog around town, then a nice breakfast of oatmeal. After that, I'm awake and ready for the day. The more you can get done in a day, the better!"

Calvin just silently ate his cereal, mostly because he was too tired to really say anything.

"Hey, Calvin," Dad said, turning his attention to his son. "Just think of how much character you'll build at summer camp! Hiking, canoeing, camping..."

"You're not helping, Tom!" Mom said.

Calvin finished his cereal, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and began walking to the door. Mom followed him, mostly to make sure he didn't bolt as soon as he was outside.

Dad smiled as he watched his son leave. "What a lucky boy Calvin is! I never got to do any of the things he gets to do when I was his age!"

* * *

Calvin and his mother stood at the bus stop, waiting for the bus to come and take Calvin to summer camp. Calvin had now traded in his tiredness for scowling in the directing of where the bus would soon be.

"Calvin?" asked his mother.

"What?" Calvin replied, making no attempt to hide his grouchiness.

"You're taking Hobbes with you to camp?" she went on, noticing the tiger doll he had in his arm.

"Of course I am!" Calvin said indignantly. "Why would I willingly go to such a nightmarish place as _summer camp_ alone?"

"Well," Mom said. "Don't you think the other kids might pick on you for bringing him?"

"Why would they?" Calvin questioned. "Hobbes is a _tiger_ , Mom! A voracious apex predator! The undisputed king of the wild! The if someone makes fun of Hobbes, he'll eat them alive!"

Mom sighed. Calvin always seemed to think that Hobbes was a real tiger and not a stuffed toy, but she didn't want to take the joys of childhood away from her son. That would have to wait until he was older, and by then he'd have grown out of it on his own. At least, she hoped that would be the case...

Her thoughts were interrupted by a pine green bus pulling up at the sidewalk and opening it's doors. Calvin begrudgingly began walking up the stairs, not looking back as his mother waved goodbye. Not necessarily out of callousness or spite, mind you, but because he was simply too grumpy to notice.

Mom watched as the doors closed and the bus drove off. "I sure hope the camp is able to survive Calvin." she muttered, a tinge of worry in her voice.

* * *

Calvin sat in the bus, arms crossed, his face in a pout. It had been about half an hour now. Or had it been two? Maybe it had gone on for a full day, perhaps a week. He couldn't tell, there wasn't a clock in there. Calvin's watch had conveniently stopped working as well, because of course it had.

"Hey, Calvin?" asked Hobbes.

"What?" Calvin grumbled irritably.

"What's the camp named again?"

"How should I know?!" Calvin demanded. "I haven't read the pamphlet!"

"Why didn't you read the pamphlet?!" Hobbes asked.

"Why should I?!" Calvin snapped irritably. "I didn't ask to go to Camp Whatsitnow, nor did I want to! I have no reason to care about that wasteland!"

"Then do we have the pamphlet on hand somewhere?" Hobbes pressed on, hoping to nip Calvin's rant in the bud.

Calvin paused for a minute, abandoning his tirade. "I don't think I packed it."

Hobbes checked Calvin's backpack. "I seem to remember putting it in the front compartment after we learned Moe was at the camp... Ah! There it is!" The tiger pulled the pamphlet out of the front pocket of Calvin's backpack. He then proceeded unfold it and shift himself so that Calvin could see the pamphlet too.

Written on the front of the booklet was CAMP SCIENTIST in big yellow letters with a red outline. Below was the tagline, "WE'LL MAKE YOUR KIDS INTO SCIENTISTS!" Both the title and tagline were in all caps. The two read through the booklet, checking the activities. "Hmm..." said Hobbes. "Let's see here… Camping, hiking, canoeing..."

"In other words, Camp Scientist has nothing to do with scientists." said Calvin.

"Yep." replied Hobbes.

"What we have here is a clear-cut case of false advertising. Once we get back, I propose we file a lawsuit, immediately!" Calvin declared.

Hobbes tried his best not to roll his eyes, when he noticed something on the pamphlet. He brought the pamphlet closer to his eyes so he could read it.

"It says here that the place used to be called Camp Grizzly, but it was bought by this rich guy called Frank M.A.D. Mann, who renamed the place to Camp Scientist. It also says that he'll be at the camp."

"But does it say why he has three middle names?" Calvin asked. "I mean, really, who gives their kid _three_ middle names? It's like giving an animal four words for their scientific name instead of two! They might as well just use the acronym as his _real_ middle name!"

Hobbes checked the pamphlet as Calvin continued to rant. "Nope, nothing about the three middle names. Guess we'll ask him when we get there."

"Ask him?" Calvin asked. "Don't you think he'd be a little sensitive about that? Having three middle names sounds like something he'd be embarrassed about."

"I think he'd be more embarrassed about the fact that saying the acronym of his middle name and his last name together sounds like 'madman'." Hobbes observed.

Calvin nodded. "It does make him sound like a supervillain, doesn't it?"

"Do you think he might be?" asked Hobbes.

Calvin took in a deep breath, signalling to Hobbes that a rant about the many injustices in the world (And, more importantly, to Calvin, was about to start). The tiger sighed. "Oh boy."

"Hobbes," Calvin began. "Anybody who works at a summer camp is a supervillain. The only thing more cruel than keeping kids trapped at school during the school year for half a day is keeping kids trapped, _during summer, FOR AN ENTIRE DAY, **FOR A FULL WEEK!**_ "

Everyone in the vehicle turned their head to Calvin-With the exception of the bus driver, of course. Any good bus driver should know that taking their eyes off the road would usually have catastrophic results, and so the bus driver kept his eyes on the road, his focus absolute. An outstanding driver, he was.

Calvin opened his mouth to continue his rant, when the bus suddenly slowed to a halt.

"What the-?" Calvin began. He was interrupted as the doors flung open, giving a good view of what had to be Camp Scientist. Either he had been bored out of his mind for longer than he thought, or the drive had been shorter than he thought, because they had finally reached their destination.

"Alright, everyone." said the bus driver. "We're here. Go out and stretch you legs and run around or whatever."

The most hyperactive kids came out first, dashing out like miniature bolts of lightning. They were followed by the rest of the passengers, pushing and shoving to get through the cramped space and out the door. The kids who had fallen asleep during the ride, intentional or not, trailed behind, slowly dragging their feet as fast as their half-asleep brains could move them.

Calvin, on the other hand, had different ideas.

"Hey, Calvin?" asked Hobbes. "We're here. The other kids are all going out."

"If they want to give up their freedom, that's fine by me." Calvin replied. "But I'm staying. If we don't leave, then the driver will just go back to wherever buses go when they're not driving around. We'll sneak out, and walk the rest of the way back home."

"Ah." said Hobbes.

"I can here you back there." said the bus driver. "And I'd like to say that it's time to get out."

"Stay silent." Calvin hissed. "Make him think he's just hallucinating, and he'll just drive away."

"I know you're there." the driver said. "And I also know that the counselors are giving out free money to whoever gets to the gathering area first."

Now he had Calvin's attention. "Free money?" he asked, raising his eyebrow and abandoning all stealth. Hobbes rolled his eyes. So much for staying silent.

"Oh yeah." replied the bus driver. "They'll give out a whole twenty bucks to whoever gets in there first. I'd hurry out there if I were you."

"COME ON, HOBBES!" Calvin shouted, rushing out the door. "WE'VE GOT A FREE TWENTY DOLLARS WAITING FOR US!"

Hobbes sighed and followed him, carrying the backpack that Calvin had conveniently decided not to carry.

The bus driver chuckled as the spiky-haired boy rushed out the doors. "Works every time."

* * *

Calvin skidded to a halt, panting heavily, in front of the counselor's cabin. A man was standing in front of the kids, listing off their names. He was a middle-aged man, was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, shades and sandals, looking more like a tourist than a counselor. The man had black hair and a bushy mustache. Written on his name tag was "Mr. Bill." In terms of appearance, he reminded Calvin of his Uncle Max.

But that wasn't important. What was important was that Calvin clearly wasn't the first one to get to the gathering area, and therefore wouldn't be getting the free twenty bucks.

"Darn it." he muttered. "There goes the twenty dollars."

"The guy was probably lying about that anyways." Hobbes pointed out, dropping the backpack as he reached the gathering area.

"Lie?" Calvin questioned incredulously. "To a child? Why would he-"

"Calvin Watterson." called Mr. Bill.

"What?" asked Calvin, his train of thought interrupted.

Mr. Bill wrote down Calvin's name on the clipboard in his hands. "Now that we have everyone here, I'd like to go over the rules of the camp. There will be no littering, no bullying, no aggressiveness or violence, no breaking camp equipment..."

Calvin began zoning out. He never really cared about rules, and this was no different.

After a couple minutes, Mr. Bill ended his listing of the rules. "If you ever forget the rules, they're pinned up on the walls of our sleeping cabins, and in the cabins you'll be staying in. Now, we'll be assigning you all a partner."

Calvin let out a groan. He positively _hated_ working with other people. Always yelling at him, calling him out for being a weirdo, smashing him into walls, the list went on.

"Here at Camp Scientist," Mr. Bill went on. "We greatly value and encourage teamwork. Because of this, we make sure that everyone has a partner and friend when they come to this camp. This year, we have an even ratio of boys and girls, the first time in camp history. Due to this turn of events, we decided that each boy would be paired up with a girl, and vice versa."

Calvin groaned again, and this time, about half the campers joined him. As if being given a partner wasn't suffering enough, their partner would be a girl! (Or a boy. The subject of strife varied between campers.)

Mr. Bill began listing off names, partnering them up with a camper of the opposite gender.

Calvin clasped his hands together, silently praying he wouldn't be with Susie. " _Pleasenotsusiepleasenotsusiepleasenotsusie..._ " he whispered desperately.

Hobbes just covered his ears, anticipating Calvin's inevitable explosion.

"Susie and Moe." Mr. Bill said. Susie and Moe walked up in front of him, and he walked slowly ahead, calling up the next pair of kids.

Calvin let out a breath. He wouldn't be with Susie. Hobbes exhaled too, and tentatively took his hands off his ears. Perhaps he would escape with his eardrums unscathed today.

Mr. Bill continued listing off pairs, until finally, he got to Calvin. "Calvin and Sakura." he said.

Calvin grumbled and began walking up to him, dragging his feet as he went. While not being paired up with Susie was a massive relief, it still wasn't enough to put him in a good mood. Hobbes picked up the backpack and followed him.

Calvin stopped in front of Mr. Bill, as did his new partner, who was apparently named Sakura (Which was a really weird name, according to Calvin).

"Calvin," said Mr. Bill. "This is Sakura. Sakura, this is Calvin. I know this the first time at Camp Scientist for both of you, so I'd like you to work together. Get to know each other. Find out what the two of you like. Besides, it looks like you both brought along some friends of your own." He winked, and walked away.

Calvin turned to his new "partner." "Hello." she said, waving.

The girl-Sakura-had black hair, tied into pigtails. She was wearing a skirt, blue on top and pink near the bottom, with a flower on the top. The flower had pink petals and a yellow center. She was also wearing black socks that went just above her knees.

Then Calvin noticed her eyes. Those eyes were not normal. Not at all. Her left eye was normal-It was a nice, standard blue. It was her right eye that was strange: It was a deep crimson color, like rubies. The effect of having separately colored eyes, one of which was not a normal human eye color, was quite jarring.

"What's up with your eye?" Calvin blurted.

"Frankly, we've got no idea." said an unfamiliar voice. Calvin turned towards the source of the voice, and he jumped a little. Standing at Sakura's side was a robot, just a little over a head taller than Calvin. How he hadn't noticed him, he had no idea.

The robot looked to be made of black plastic, with glowing teal lines on his body, specifically a ring around where his stomach would be, and around his wrists and ankles. His arms started with a silvery rod, then a black cylinder with a bright teal ring near the hands, followed by the hands themselves.

His main body was round on the sides, and his legs were similar to his arms, but instead of hands, there were round, shoe-like feet. His head was round, though not a full circle, with two large, glowing blue lenses for eyes. A small, glowing teal dome was embedded in his chest.

"This is my friend, Nikola." Sakura said, gesturing towards the robot.

"Hey." said the robot-Nikola, apparently. "I'm here for the sole purposes of making references nobody understands and snark at stupid people doing stupid things."

An awkward silence fell over the group. Finally, Hobbes spoke: "We only just got here and we've already met a robot. I don't think I want to stick around and see what's next." And with that, he dashed off in a flash of orange and black.

"HEY!" Calvin shouted, running after him. "GET BACK HERE!"

Nikola sighed as he watched the two run off. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

* * *

 **Note: And Chapter 2 is finished, thankfully in much less time than the last one. Anyways, I'm sure many of you know that Sakura is a Japanese name, and I'd like to confirm that yes, she is Japanese. I'll elaborate on it next chapter. As for how I chose the names: Nikola is named after Nikola Tesla, creator of the Tesla coil, and Sakura is one letter away from the last name of Masahiro Sakurai, the guy who made both the Kirby series and the Super Smash Bros. series. If you haven't played either, I highly suggest you do.**

 **Funny story, Sakura actually wasn't intended as Japanese, but Japan makes all the cool things and so that's what she ended up named after. Since it wouldn't make sense for her to have a Japanese name otherwise, she ended up being Japanese.**

 **And that concludes my imparting of knowledge to you all. Hope you stick around for the next chapter. Until then, adios.**


	3. Sakura and Nikola

**Author's Note: Sorry this chapter took a bit longer to finish than the previous one. Anyways, this chapter is mostly dedicated to fleshing out my OCs that were introduced last chapter. It might be get take a while, but I think it's important that you get an idea of what they act like. I'm also going to introduce another counselor this chapter. He's going to be very important to the story, and so will a minor character that shows up in this chapter. Make of that as you will.**

 **P.S. Please comment some more on this story so I can know what you think. That would be greatly appreciated.**

* * *

Calvin, Hobbes, Nikola, and Sakura sat in a loose circle. Now that Calvin and Hobbes had finally stopped running around, they had started getting to know each other.

"So what are you into?' asked Hobbes, attempting to break the ice.

"I like science." said Sakura. "Especially nature. I've memorized about 150 species of sharks, all the big cats, a hundred amphibians..."

"So you've memorized all the big cats, eh?" said Hobbes. "So which one of them is the best?"

"I don't know." Sakura replied. "I don't have a way to test all of them in every category."

Hobbes snorted. "As a big cat myself, I'd like you to know that tigers are obviously superior in every way imaginable."

"Actually, cheetahs have been proven to be faster, so I don't think that would make tigers superior in _every_ way imaginable." Sakura pointed out.

"Who do you trust more, a tiger or an observer?" asked Hobbes.

"If you're faster than a cheetah, then why don't you show us?" asked Nikola.

"Sorry, but I didn't bring my drag chute." Hobbes replied.

Everyone gave him a blank stare.

"What?" asked Hobbes.

"So what about you?" Calvin asked Nikola. "What are you into?"

"I'd say, but I doubt you'd understand anything that I mention." Nikola replied.

"It's true." Sakura interjected. "Sometimes even _I_ don't understand what he's saying."

"That's because you're not old enough to see some of the things I like yet." Nikola responded. "I'm waiting until you're at least ten before I consider widening you're options."

"How about you just say a couple names and see if we recognize anything?" asked Hobbes.

"Okay then." Nikola said. "Kirby. That ring a bell?"

"No." replied Hobbes. "Do you recognize that name?"

Calvin shook his head.

"Metroid." Nikola tried again.

More head-shaking.

"Ultraman." Nikola tried a third time.

Even more head-shaking.

"Wow, quality entertainment is lost on you." Nikola muttered under his breath.

"Hmm?" asked Calvin. "Did you say something?"

"I said, 'Wow, quality entertainment is lost on you.'" Nikola said again.

"Does your 'quality entertainment' reduce thinking and melt your brain into mush?" asked Calvin.

Nikola just gave him an extra-blank stare. If there was a record for blankest stare ever, then the robot would have shattered it.

"So back to the previous topic," Hobbes said. "The superiority of tigers."

Nikola rolled his eyes. "Great." he muttered. "I'm stuck with two nimrods now."

"I heard that!" Hobbes snapped.

"Well, tigers _are_ apex predators." Sakura pointed out. "But it's hard to compare them to other apex predators because each apex predator is adapted to their own environment, making it hard to have a fair comparison."

"Tigers are definitely better than lions, though." Hobbes insisted.

"I have a question." Calvin said, turning to Sakura.

"Yes?" asked Sakura.

"Where did your name come from?" Calvin asked. "I mean, who names their kid _Sakura_? It's like you're from a different planet!"

"Actually, it's a very common name from where she gets it." Nikola said. "It's from a country called Japan. Look it up."

"So it's a Japanese name?" asked Hobbes.

Sakura nodded. "I get it from my mom. She met my dad in when she moved to America, but I never got to meet him." She sighed.

"Well, at least your dad doesn't drag you on trips to barren islands in the middle of nowhere and ride his bike at 6:00 in the morning in the snow on the basis that it 'builds character.'" Calvin pointed out.

Nikola and Sakura gave Calvin looks of alarm.

"What?" asked Calvin. "It's true!"

"I can confirm this." Hobbes added. "Especially the camping trips."

"Were they really that bad?" Sakura asked.

"No, they were fine." said Calvin. "I just had to sit on a barren, lifeless rock, where the only way you can feed yourself is either packing cold, canned ravioli, or beheading and gutting a _thrashing, gasping, slimy fish_. And if that loveliness isn't enough, I had to deal with either Dad getting mad at me for dropping the luggage and causing him to lose his glasses, having it rain for the _entire week_ , and, worst of all, _getting eaten alive by NUCLEAR MOSQUITOES_!"

"Ah." Nikola stated. "I see. Sounds painful."

"So what's going on with her eye?" asked Hobbes, pointing to Sakura. He didn't want Calvin to launch into another rant about the horrors of camping.

"I told you before," Nikola replied. "we don't know."

"My knowledge of genetics tell me that the only logical explanation for either eye color is some sort of genetic mutation." Sakura added.

"So you're a mutant?" asked Calvin, who appeared to be very interested now. "What can you do? Do you have psychic powers? Flight? Talking to animals?"

"Not _that_ kind of mutation, dingus." Nikola said. "She just means that something happened in the womb and her inherited traits were altered slightly when she was born. At least, that's what I can garner from what she's told me."

"Yeah, he explained it pretty well." Sakura said. "I don't have any special powers, but I do bring a parasol with me wherever I go." She opened a little black parasol she had been carrying. Somehow, nobody had noticed it until now. "It's closer to an umbrella, really." she admitted.

Hobbes arched his eyebrow. "A parasol?" he asked. "Why?"

"It's kind of like a good luck charm." Sakura replied. "It also helps block things that might hurt me, like balls that someone threw."

"Fair point." Hobbes said. "Where do you think I could get one of those? It would really help with surviving Mr. Doom here."

He motioned to Calvin, who responded with an indignant "Hey!"

Sakura shrugged. "I don't know. My mom just told me that it's mine a couple years ago, and I've just been bringing it where ever I go when I decided that it would help to have some protection."

Suddenly, Mr. Bill's voice sounded out across the area, interrupting the chattering campers. "Alright, now that you're all acquainted, it's time to introduce you to the counselors of this camp. Follow us to the camp cafeteria!"

* * *

Everyone had assembled in the camp's cafeteria. Mr. Bill stood at the front. "Now, I'm sure many of you have been here before, back when we were Camp Grizzly, so you should know some of us. This year, however, we also have a new counselor. Please give a warm welcome to the newest member of the camp staff, Frank M.A.D. Mann!"

As soon as he said that, a man with spiky white hair burst into the room.

Calvin looked up at the man. He certainly looked more... _interesting_ than Mr. Bill.

Mr. Frank waved. "Hiya, kids!" he said in a German accent so utterly exaggerated it just had to be faked. "I'm your cool new camp counselor, and definitely not some crazy evil scientist dude with an evil plan of world domination!"

"Welp, that certainly doesn't sound suspicious." Nikola muttered.

"I'm also pretty sure he took that line from a movie and changed it a little so it didn't sound the same." Sakura added.

"Mr. Frank, as he prefers to be called, has bought our camp, and is also the reason it has been renamed Camp Scientist." said Mr. Bill, who then added, "Not that I approve of it." under his breath. "Please don't ask about his three middle names. We've already gotten a lot of letters from your parents about that."

"I was also in charge of deciding your partners!" Mr. Frank added. "I gathered at much information from your parents as possible so I could give you all the best matches possible, and totally didn't just draw sticks randomly!"

Mr. Bill secretly rolled his eyes behind Mr. Frank's back.

"How very reassuring." Nikola snarked, clearly not buying Mr. Frank's excuse for a moment.

Calvin inhaled sharply and shuddered, realizing that Mr. Frank was probably lying and he could have ended up with someone like Susie.

"Now, allow us to introduce the other members of the camp staff." Mr. Bill said.

Calvin zoned out has Mr. Bill introduced Mr. Rob, Mr. Sam, Ms. Alex, blah blah blah...

As Mr. Bill finished the introductions and dismissed the campers to relax and explore the campus, Hobbes realized something.

"Wait," he said. "Why do they all go by their first names? Doesn't the usual layout have their last names instead?"

Calvin jumped out of his seat with a yelp. As he caught his breath, Sakura explained, "The pamphlet says they prefer to use their first names because they want the kids at the camp to feel like their surrounded by friends. At least, I think that's what it said."

"Ah. That explains it." Hobbes replied.

As Sakura and Nikola joined the mass of campers leaving the cafeteria, Calvin whispered to Hobbes, "We need to hold a G.R.O.S.S meeting, pronto."

* * *

"This emergency meeting of G.R.O.S.S. will come to order!" said Calvin.

He and Hobbes had put on some newspaper hats, and were currently in some sort of unspecified dark place. G.R.O.S.S. was a club Calvin made, consisting of himself and Hobbes. The acronym stood for **G** et **R** id **O** f **S** limy girl **S** (Calvin said it wouldn't make sense otherwise). Their main target was Susie, and, despite their many attempts, most of their missions ended in failure.

"Dictator-for-Life Calvin and President and First Tiger Hobbes present!" replied Hobbes. "Now, shall we get down to business?"

"Immediately." said Calvin. "Dictator-for-Life Calvin's parents have shipped him off to the infamous prison known as 'Summer Camp', where I am told I shall be trapped for a week. However, my knowledge of my parents tells me that they most likely are intending to keep me here forever, never to bother them again. Evidently, we must find some way to escape."

"How should we do that?" asked Hobbes.

"Hmm..." Calvin mulled over the available options. "We took a bus here today. Perhaps it'll go back again to bring more children here."

"Unlikely." Hobbes shot down the suggestion. "The bus probably only comes here to bring children once, then it'll come back at the end of the week to bring them all home."

"Darn it." Calvin muttered. "We could potentially turn to Sakura and Nikola for help."

"But isn't Sakura a girl?" asked Hobbes. "Doesn't the G.R.O.S.S. Rulebook say that we can't ally with girls or we'll be deemed a traitor?"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." Calvin muttered grimly. "Besides, a robot on our side would certainly help, and we need all the help we can get."

"So what should we do once we get them to help us?" asked Hobbes.

"Have you brought the G.R.O.S.S. Handbook of Survival Strategies?" asked Calvin.

"Well, I found it in you backpack, along with the entire contents of your room." Hobbes held up a red notebook, rather thick due to the amount of pages in it. Written on it, in big, sloppy letters, was the words "TOP-SECRET G.R.O.S.S. FILES".

"Good, good." Calvin said, taking the notebook and flipping to a random page. "Now, _this_ is a plan!"

Hobbes leaned over to see what Calvin was so excited about.

"Plan No. 1974:" Calvin said, grinning madly. "We jump into a giant robot dinosaur and blast everything in sight with a mind-boggling amount of rocket missiles!"

"There's two problems with that." Hobbes pointed out. "One: Our technology isn't advanced enough to make a gigantic, heavily armed robot dinosaur. Two: Rocket missiles are redundant."

Calvin's smile dropped. "Rats." he muttered. "That plan was made with the assumption that I would be a multi-trillionaire with the materials to make a giant dino-bot by the time we had to put it to use."

Hobbes rolled his eyes. Calvin, either not seeing it through the darkness, being too focused on the G.R.O.S.S. Handbook of Survival Strategies, or simply ignoring it, didn't respond. he flipped through the book, before settling on a plan he liked.

"Aha!" Calvin exclaimed. "How about Strategy No. 2018?"

Hobbes looked at the page Calvin had flipped to. "Well, we don't seem to have a jetpack readily available." he pointed out.

"Dang it. Strategy No. 64?"

"It would probably take years to dig a tunnel from here to home."

"Strategy No. 1992?"

"How would we summon an angry, fire-breathing dragon? Where would we find an angry, fire-breathing dragon in the first place?"

"STRATEGY NO. 10?!"

Hobbes winced. "Geez, you don't have to shout. Besides, we don't have any microphones nearby anyways."

Calvin's expression turned grim.

"Well, guess we have no choice other than Strategy No. 1." he said darkly.

"You mean assaulting our foes with water balloons?" Hobbes asked, checking the book.

"Exactly." Calvin replied, his voice devoid of any humor. "Any questions?"

"Yeah." said Hobbes. "Would it kill to poke some air holes in here?"

"No!" replied Calvin sharply. "The Box of Security must remain secure!"

Yes, they were in a box this whole time. Said box was positioned directly behind the camp cafeteria, behind a cluster of bushes.

"We seem to go through this conversation a lot." Hobbes noted from within the box. "Could we at least get some air conditioning? It get's really stuffy in here."

"We must make sacrifices for the greater good." Calvin muttered grimly. "Now, on to victory!"

Hobbes rolled his eyes as they emerged from the cardboard box. He was tempted to say something, but at the moment he didn't feel like getting an earful from the spiky-haired six-year-old.

* * *

It was a very dark night in the big, unspecified city. The many tall buildings cast shadows across the dimly lit streets below. All was silent, until…

WHOOSH!

"A crimson bolt streaks through the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a three-headed golden space dragon of death that's come to destroy us all? NO! It's STUPENDOUS MAN!"

The red blur landed on an exceptionally tall building, revealing a rather short individual, wearing a red mask that covered his face and the top of his head, and equally red cape.

"Defender of freedom and liberty! Enemy of evil and oppression! Sensing the evil that lurks within the city, Stupendous Man takes off!"

A loud BOOM resounded through the air as Stupendous Man flew off of the building. Quickly, his stupendous speed carried him to a specific spot in the air above the unspecified city, where, with his stupendous vision allowed him to spot something happening in the streets below.

"Great moons of Neptune!" the masked superhero exclaimed. "It's Stupendous Man's arch-nemesis, the evil COUNSELOR-KING! Stupendous Man flies into action!"

* * *

Sakura and Nikola sat together in the shade of one of the cabin's shadow, relaxing. Sakura was reading a book, and Nikola had brought out some sort of gaming console and was playing on it. A compartment had been opened in his chest, with a cable sticking out of it. The cable had been plugged into the handheld console, acting as a built-in set of headphones for the robot.

Technically, the campers weren't supposed to bring any game consoles with them, but Nikola and Sakura had agreed that since Nikola wasn't actually signed up for camp and just deciding to accompany her, it should be okay if he brought it to play with.

A couple feet away from them, some of the other kids were playing soccer, baseball, arts and crafts, or just reading, as Sakura was doing. Mr. Bill and Mr. Frank watched them all play. Overall, everything was peaceful. Suddenly, a shout cut through the air.

"YOUR TIME IS UP, VILE FIEND!"

Everyone's heads turned to watch as Calvin skidded to a halt, wearing a rather silly-looking superhero costume. Behind him was a bucket of water balloons. Fot a moment, nobody said anything.

Sakura leaned over to Susie, who had sat down a couple feet away from her to read a book of her own, and asked, "Is he always like this?"

Susie sighed. "Unfortunately, yes."

"COUNSELOR-KING!" Calvin continued to shout. "You cannot escape the wrath of _STUPENDOUS MAN_ and his loyal sidekick, _FANGED TIGER_! GIVE UP!"

"Huh." Susie noted. "I don't think he's ever brought his tiger into his superhero fantasies."

"NOW, ANY LAST… WORDS… Wait a minute…" Calvin trailed off upon realizing that Hobbes wasn't with him. He looked around, and grumbled. "Ah, forget it."

And with that, Calvin leaped at Mr. Bill... and missed. The counselor grabbed him by the back of his collar as his stumbled around, trying to regain his balance. Calvin flailed around ineffectively-And rather pathetically, I must add.

"Stupendous Man has the strength of a million mortal men!" Calvin shouted. "Give up!"

Mr. Bill gave the watching kids a glance. They all shrugged simultaneously.

"GREAT MOONS OF NEPTUNE!" Calvin kept shouting. "Counselor-King must have super-strength too!"

Mr. Bill dropped Calvin, allowing him to run over to the water balloons, and threw them, shouting, "Channeling all of his inner stupendous power, Stupendous Man throws a barrage of STUPENDOUS FIREBALLS!"

The water balloons hit Mr. Bill and the surrounding kids, soaking them all. Sakura brought out her parasol, protecting both her and Nikola.

Everyone stared at Calvin, soaking wet.

"Watch the kids for me." Mr. Bill told Mr. Frank, slowly advancing towards Calvin.

Calvin's eyes bulged with terror. "The Stupendous Fireballs have no effect! Stupendous Man has no choice but to flee!"

And with that, the ran off-Only to trip on a rock, causing him to fall to the ground. Unfortunately for Calvin, that specific area was slanted downwards, causing him to roll downwards. Calvin's misfortune only increased as he splashed into the lake at the end of the slope.

Everybody watching facepalmed simultaneously.

As Calvin dragged himself out of the water, completely drenched and muttering something indecipherable, Hobbes slid up to Nikola and Sakura, who had gone back to their respective activities.

"Hello." he said.

"Hey." Nikola said back, mostly focused on his game.

"What's this?" Hobbes inquired, looking at Nikola's two-screened game device. On it's top screen, a pink blob with a hammer was currently in the process of swinging it's large wooden melee weapon to pummel a large, reddish frog-like blob into oblivion.

"This?" Nikola replied, apparently having performed his equivalent to lifting off one half of the headphones from his ear. "This is Kirby: Triple Deluxe. To put it simply, it's about a pink puffball named Kirby going on a happy adventure to save his fat penguin friend Dedede from a spider. It ends with Kirby saving the planet from a giant flower-bee-thing that's trying to become a god."

Hobbes blinked. "Well, _that_ was certainly a twist ending." he said.

"It happens a lot in this series." Nikola pointed out. "You start off all happy and then you discover that the final boss is literally Space Satan and his fanatic space cult. You should probably get used to that kind of thing happening from these kinds of games."

Hobbes blinked. He was at a loss of words.

"If it helps, I had the same reaction when I got the the final boss myself." Sakura said.

"There was also that one Kirby game where you fought a white circle that shot blood at you and ripped it's own eyeball out of it's body in a last ditch attempt to kill you." Nikola added. "The game itself was rated E for Everyone."

"All the kid's stuff seems to be really violent these days." Hobbes noted.

"Welcome to gaming." Nikola said flatly.

"So what was the thing with Calvin all about?" asked Sakura. "Susie says this is normal for him."

"Yeah, it is." Hobbes said. "It's part of this club he made called G.R.O.S.S.- **G** et **R** id **O** f **S** limy girl **S**. But don't worry, Calvin said you two might be potential allies, so I don't think he'd go after you. Then again, that might be even worse."

" _Might_ be worse?" Nikola echoed sarcastically.

Just as the robot finished his sentence, Calvin trudged over to them, having finished his lecture from Mr. Bill. He was still soaked.

"Some help _you_ were." Calvin growled at Hobbes. "You were supposed to throw water balloons from behind and confuse everyone!"

"Really?" asked Hobbes innocently. "I thought Strategy No. 1 was just throwing water balloons at random. As a result, I felt that one person would be able to carry it out just fine on their own."

"LIES!" Calvin spat. "You abandoned your post when you were most needed! I out to demote to the official Club Welcome Mat!"

"In that case, you're Club Janitor." Hobbes shot back.

"You dare to challenge my authority?!" Calvin demanded threateningly.

"You don't _look_ like someone of authority." Nikola pointed out. "You don't act like one, either."

"You stay out of this!" Calvin shouted. "This is club matters, and club matters only!"

"Now, now, Calvin," Hobbes said, patting Calvin on the head. "That's no way to speak to potential allies, now, is it?"

"RAAAUGH!" Calvin tackled Hobbes, and the two rolled around of the ground, clawing and scratching at each other.

Nikola and Sakura watched as the two loons fought.

"Yeah." Nikola said, turning back to his game. "I think being an ally to those two is worse than being a target."

* * *

Quite some time had passed, and it was now getting dark. Mr. Bill had the kids gathered in a series of semicircular seats, with a circle of flat ground in the center, forming a sort of theater. Mr. Bill and the counselors were currently putting on a series of plays.

Calvin yawned. "When will this be over?"

"Shhh." Sakura shushed him. "I want to watch this."

"You want to watch this junk?!" Calvin demanded. "It's just a bunch of guys making fools out of themselves!"

"Like you?" Hobbes pointed out.

Nikola clocked the two buffoons on the head to shut them up before things got out of hand.

"And now," Mr. Bill began, reaching into a box. "Allow me to reintroduce our old friend, Mr. Grizz!"

The man pulled out a large stuffed grizzly bear out of a box, causing a surprising amount of cheers to come from the watching campers.

"Hoo boy." Calvin muttered. "I wonder what's the backstory for this."

"Mr. Grizz is the camp mascot." Susie explained from a seat below theirs. "He gets brought out every year."

"Oh, so that's what Mr. Bill means by 'old friend.'" Sakura said.

"While we may have changed names, Mr. Grizz is here to stay!" Mr. Bill continued from his spot below.

Calvin grumbled. "Who cares?" he muttered under his breath, but nobody heard him.

* * *

After Mr. Bill had finished bringing Mr. Grizz around, he sent everyone to their respective cabins, where they would be sleeping for their stay at the camp. Apparently, Calvin would be staying in Cabin D.

"So this is where we'll be living for the week, huh?" said Hobbes, observing the cabin as they entered. "For a 'prison cell,' it's not that bad."

The place had twelve bunk beds, six on each wall, and light blue walls that looked as if it had been painted pretty recently. On the wall opposite to the door, there was a space for the kids to place their backpacks.

Calvin grumbled as he began to empty all of his essentials out of his bag. And by "essentials", I mean "a truckload of comic books."

"Hey, Calvin," asked Hobbes. "Did you, by any chance, bring any food?"

Right on cue, a few sandwiches, some eating utensils, a bowl, and a bag of Calvin's favorite cereal brand, Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs, tumbled out onto the already impressive pile of comics.

"I suppose that answers your question?" said Calvin.

Hobbes opened his mouth, about to ask about how Calvin had managed to cram so much into his backpack without even a slight bulge, then closed it and shrugged, remembering what Calvin had said about pocket dimension technology the day before.

"Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I have some business to attend to." Calvin said, tossing his backpack on the already massive pile, causing it to topple over on top of Hobbes. Either Calvin didn't notice, or he just didn't care, because he didn't come back to help Hobbes pick it all back up.

"Some help you are." Hobbes muttered, digging himself out of the pile. While he didn't know what Calvin meant by business, he did know that it was most likely trouble, and he didn't want any part of it. It was around then that Hobbes realized that the pile of assorted stuff most likely would have made a decent hiding spot.

Before Hobbes could find a new place to hide, however, Calvin had already climbed up onto the top of his bunk bed, and loudly proclaimed, "ALRIGHT, YOU PEASANTS! LISTEN UP!"

Everybody in the cabin turned to look at him, confusion written across their faces.

"I, CALVIN, HAVE BEEN SENT HERE AGAINST MY WILL, SO I'M GOING TO MAKE THE MOST OF IT! FOR THIS WEEK, I AM YOUR RULER! _KNEEL BEFORE ME PEASANTS! KNEEL!_ "

Everybody just stared at him. Suddenly, the door opened. Everybody, Calvin included, turned towards it.

Calvin's eyes went wide with horror. His conversation with Susie came rushing back to him. In his mind, he began to think of what he would write on his will.

It was Moe.

The big, hulking bully was staring straight at Calvin, an evil grin on his face.

"Hey, Twinky!" said the hulking bully in his deep, dull voice. "I didn't know you were here!"

"Me neither." said Calvin, who had begun to climb down from his perch on the bunk bed. "Well, about you being here." He chuckled nervously.

"I guess this'll be more fun than I thought!" Moe cracked his knuckles menacingly.

Calvin knew where this was going. He'd been through this many times before.

"You're going to ask me for my money, aren't you?" he asked, though it was closer to him stating a fact than a question.

"Or I could clobber you into the wall." Moe said, punching his left fist into his palm and slowly advancing menacingly upon Calvin.

"Thought so." replied Calvin. "Well, in that case…"

He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and began his speech, "Your aggressive behavior and overly muscular build for a six-year-old suggests a very diverse genetic background. I seem to detect hints of _Australopithecus Afarensis_ , _Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis_ , and _Gigantopithecus blacki_. If I am wrong, please correct me."

And with that, he tossed Moe a quarter. "There." he said simply. "That was worth my twenty-five cents. Goodnight."

As Calvin began getting ready for bed, he sighed. He was going to have to sleep in the same room as _Moe_ , the hulking bully of doom. This was going to be a very, very long week.

* * *

 **Author's Note: So this chapter ended u being a bit longer than usual. Sorry if you found the last couple chapters a bit underwhelming. I'll try my best to increase the humor a bit more in the later chapters. I think a lot of the gags in this might work a bit better in animation, but I can't animate, I don't have any VA's on hand, and writing is just quicker, so here we are. If any of you have any pointers, I'll gladly accept them.**


	4. Raining on the Canoeing Parade

**Author's Note: So that took WAY longer than it should've. First fanfiction kind of went to the back of my mind for a bit, then I went places where I either didn't bring my computer or I didn't have enough time to write, and then I got a new game and the Joker DLC for Super Smash Bros Ultimate came out around the same time, and I've just been pretty busy in general. In other news, this chapter is somewhat of a short chapter-though it does have a bit of an important bit that'll come up later-Mostly because I feel that over a month without an update is too long, and I want to get a chapter out. Also, I'd like to say that the feedback I've been getting back so far is appreciated, and more would be appreciated as well.**

 **Replying to Charmander17: While this story is very much inspired by the fanfictions of Garfieldodie and Swing123-Known by some as The Calvinverse, for those unaware-and Mr. Frank's name is a reference to Doctor Brainstorm's, there won't be any characters from their stories, Brainstorm included.**

* * *

Calvin shifted in his bed and shoved his face into his pillow, trying to block out the Sun's irritating rays, which were currently trying to awaken him from his slumber. Calvin was determined not to comply.

Calvin's plans were thwarted when Mr. Bill poked his head into the cabin Calvin was staying in and said, "Rise and shine, campers! It's time for breakfast! Early bird gets the worm!"

Calvin groaned as he began to lift his head from the comfort of the pillow. "Big incentive." he muttered under his breath.

As he began to drag himself out of his bed, he noticed that Hobbes had already gotten up and was reading what appeared to be a small booklet.

Hobbes noticed his friend watching, and said, "Hey."

Calvin's eyes narrowed on the small booklet in Hobbes' hands. "What are you reading?" he asked, "And where did you get that?"

"Oh, this?" asked Hobbes, holding up the small collection of pages in his hands. "It was in that rack over there."

Calvin followed his friend's arm to see a rack next to the now-open door, filled with identical booklets that looked just like the one in Hobbes' furry paws. A sticky note attached to it read, "Camp Schedule for the Week."

Calvin blinked. "Oh."

Hobbes read the booklet. "Today's schedule is breakfast, followed by some canoeing."

Calvin cut off Hobbes with a groan. Multiple vacations with his dad told him that canoeing was bad news.

Hobbes ignored him and continued on. "After canoeing, we have lunch, then a bit of arts and crafts, then a hike. After that, we've got some free time, with the staff setting up dodgeball for the kids. Then comes dinner, a campfire story, and bedtime."

Calvin groaned once more. "It's even worse than Dad's camping trips!"

"Well, at least there isn't any mosquitoes." Hobbes pointed out.

"But it has Susie and Moe and everyone else from school!" Calvin argued back. By now, he had finished getting his clothes on, and was walking out the door.

"But they don't buzz around you and suck your blood, do they?" Hobbes pointed out.

"And we have to do dodgeball!" Calvin continued to rant. "DODGEBALL! Of all the cruel inhumanities! I might as well be holding a sign reading 'HEY MOE CREAM ME WITH A BALL AT HIGH VELOCITY PLEASE!'"

Hobbes paused to consider Calvin's words. "Fair enough." he said after a brief pause.

"Fair enough?!" Calvin demanded. "FAIR ENOUGH?! It's my last day alive, and all you can say is 'fair enough?!' Have you no sympathy?! No pity?! No sorrow?! No- WAUGH!"

Calvin was quickly cut off as he tripped on a rock and fell flat on his face, getting a mouthful of dirt in the process.

As he watched his friend spit dirt and dust out of his mouth, Hobbes noticed Nikola and Sakura walking up to him and Calvin.

"Okay, how did he manage this one?" Nikola asked, taking note of Calvin wrapping up his spitting of dirt onto the path.

"He tripped over a rock while ranting over how cruel this camp was." Hobbes replied.

Calvin finally stood back up, and noticed that Nikola and Sakura had apparently walked over to him and Hobbes.

"Hey!" he said. "When did you guys get here?"

"While you were spitting onto the ground." Nikola replied, motioning to the muddy puddle of spit that Calvin had made.

"We came to you because we're partners" Sakura said, "And besides you two are the only people here that we've really interacted with anyways."

"So we're friends now?" asked Hobbes.

"HOBBES!" Calvin shouted. "We don't know these people! We just met them yesterday! We have no idea how trustworthy they are! They could be hiding dark secrets from us! They could be enemy spies! You can't just-"

"Yeah, I guess we're friends now." Sakura said, cutting him off.

"NOOOOO!" Calvin screamed. "I CAN'T BE FRIENDS WITH A GIRL! THIS VIOLATES EVERY RULE IN THE G.R.O.S.S. RULEBOOK! IT'S A MARK ON MY RECORDS! A STAIN ON MY HONOR! I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO FACE THE CLUB EVER AGAIN!"

"Don't mind him." Hobbes said as Calvin stopped ranting to catch his breath. "That's just his way of showing affection."

Nikola turned to face Sakura. "I'm beginning to think you might need some lessons on choosing your friends." he said.

Suddenly, a bell rang out across the campus. The few campers that hadn't reached the cafeteria already suddenly began to speed up.

"What's all the hurry?" asked Hobbes.

"According to the booklet, the bell tells us when they start serving food!" Sakura explained. "If we want to eat, we'd better hurry!"

And with that, Calvin, Hobbes, and Sakura made a mad dash to the cafeteria. Nikola, on the other hand, kept slowly walking forward. Hobbes ran back to the robot.

"Why aren't you running?" he asked. "Don't you want to eat?"

"Hobbes, I'm a _robot_." Nikola explained. "I physically _can't_ eat."

"Fair enough." Hobbes replied, resuming his sprint to the the food.

* * *

In the cafeteria, Calvin discovered that apparently, oatmeal was on the menu. He sighed as the rest of the campers ate their ground oats. The cafeteria itself was more or less a bunch of chairs and tables facing a circle of rocks for the counselor's various announcements. There weren't even any walls.

"It's not that bad, actually." Sakura told him as she finished eating. "It _is_ a bit boring when you have just about every other day, though."

"Meanwhile, I'm replacing my batteries." Nikola noted from the corner. "For the umpteenth time this month. And it's the same as every other time."

"Guess there's a couple downsides to being mechanical." Hobbes noted. "Too bad you're not a tiger. Then you'd have _no_ disadvantages."

"But don't tigers need to breath?" Sakura pointed out.

Hobbes opened his mouth to respond, but before he could answer, Mr. Bill and a couple other counselors, including Mr. Frank, walked to the circle of rocks made for announcements.

"Alright, campers." Mr. Bill announced. "It seems that everyone has finished eating, so it's time for the first of today's many exiting activities: Canoeing."

He was met with a responding mass of groans. Evidently, Calvin wasn't alone in his hatred of canoes.

"Now, now, enough with the complaining." Mr. Frank told them. "You might actually like it. As my mother said, 'If you don't try something, you'll die feeling you've missed out on it.'"

"Something tells me his mom never told him that." Nikola said.

"I'm with you." Hobbes agreed.

"Alrighty, then, enough chit-chat!" Mr. Frank announced, walking towards the canoeing area. "On with the show!"

* * *

"Canoeing." Calvin grumbled unhappily. The campers were all standing at the rocky shore of a lake, canoes tethered to wooden poles sticking out of the rocks.

"Of all the activities we could have done, they chose canoeing." Calvin continued "Why? Why do we need to do this? What makes this so high on the counselors to do list? Why? Why? WHY?"

"Simple." Nikola responded. "The author has no originality at the moment, and has to pull from Swing123's fanfic that inspired this one because this is enough of a ripoff fanfic as it is."

Everyone turned to look at him questioningly, not understanding a word he said. Meanwhile, somewhere in the world the fourth wall was dying a silent, painful death.

"What?" asked Nikola. "It's true."

"Alright, campers." Mr. Bill said. "It's time to disembark. You've got ten minutes to get in the canoes. Remember, no roughhousing, no pushing anyone into the water, and no splashing anyone."

Calvin grumbled as he, Hobbes, Nikola, and Sakura stepped into their orange canoe. "First they force us to do canoeing, then they take away any fun we could possibly get from it." he muttered under his breath.

Immediately after they got in, they realized that they had a problem. While Calvin and Sakura got their own spots, Hobbes and Nikola ended up being forced to share a seat. It became apparent that while the canoe was made with the possibility of a third kid needing a space in mind, what the small boat's designer _didn't_ consider was the possibility that the watercraft would need to contain two small kids, a considerably taller tiger, and a robot that was somewhere in between. Evidently, two people were going to get squished.

"Hey, you're digging in to me!" Hobbes exclaimed. "Move over!"

"Sorry if I can't help being made of hard plastic, Mr. Pointy Claws!" Nikola shot back.

"Maybe we should get out and sort this through?" Sakura suggested.

"Good idea." Hobbes and Nikola agreed at the same time, readily getting out of the cramped space. Calvin and Sakura followed.

"It appears that either someone is going to hang on to the boat, or two people are sharing the same space." Hobbes noted.

"I'm not doing either." Calvin said immediately.

"Let's look at this logically." Sakura suggested. "See how well everyone fits."

"I'm afraid I don't follow." Hobbes told her.

"Everyone's different." Sakura told him. "For example, Nikola's made of hard plastic, so anyone that has to share a seat with him is going to get very uncomfortable, so he'll need to have his own seat out of necessity."

"Also, I don't want to have to deal with anyone complaining _directly into my ear_." Nikola added, casting a glare towards Hobbes.

"Hey, I can't help it if you're _d_ _igging into my side with my entire body_!" Hobbes shot back.

"And that's why we're giving Nikola his own seat." Sakura said. "And Hobbes is both tall and covered in fur, meaning that anyone stuck with him is going to get both squished and itchy, and possibly overheated, so Hobbes gets a seat of his own too."

"Why, thank you!" Hobbes thanked Sakura, hopping into the middle seat.

"Welp, guess I'll get to sit back and relax." Nikola informed Hobbes, stepping into the back seat. "Unless you want to be lazy, in which case, you should probably remember that the third, just-in-case seat in the back is the one without a pair of oars."

Hobbes whipped his head around to look at Nikola, then at the oars placed in front of the seats. Sure enough, the back seat was the only one without oars. Hobbes turned back to Nikola and growled.

Sakura ignored the two, and continued to calculate. "Now that Hobbes and Nikola have their own seats, we've got one seat and two people, including myself..." She trailed off and glanced towards Calvin.

Calvin waited for a second. Then the realization kicked. "NO!" he shrieked. "I CANNOT AND I WILL NOT SIT IN THE SAME SEAT AS A GIRL! I REFUSE! THIS COMPROMISES MY MORALS! MY INTEGRITY! MY... Uh... MY MORAL INTEGRITY!"

"I'd sit with Sakura," Nikola said, "but my composition means it would be very uncomfortable for her, and we can't have that."

"And what about Calvin?" Hobbes asked.

"That's less of me not wanting him to be in pain and more of me not wanting him to decimate all of our eardrums." Nikola replied "What about you?"

"He's too pushy." Hobbes responded. "He squirms and whines and won't shut up, either."

"...Maybe we shouldn't put Sakura with him." Nikola decided.

"No, it's okay." Sakura said.

"NO! IT'S NOT OKAY AT ALL!" Calvin screamed.

" **ONE MINUTE LEFT, CAMPERS!** " Mr. Frank called out.

"Looks like we'll have to decide what's okay and what's not pretty quickly." Hobbes noted.

"You know what I'd be okay with?" said Calvin. "I'd be okay if it just started raining, right here right now, and this whole thing was canceled and we could all just go home!"

"Or we could just do some canoeing in rain that's going to get us wetter than if we were in the lake our boats are supposed to be floating on." Nikola pointed out.

Calvin's eyes widened and his face drained of all color. "On second thought, how about it doesn't rain at all?" he suggested. "It's a perfectly sunny day that's great for canoeing! If it were up to me, every day would be just like today!"

"Yeah, like we're falling for that one." Nikola snorted.

"Wait, I think felt it too." Hobbes noted.

It was true. Raindrops were beginning to fall onto the group. Sakura drew her parasol.

"HEY!" Calvin shouted. "Where did you get that?!"

"I always bring my parasol with me." Sakura told him. "I think I told you that yesterday."

"Yeah, I think I remember her telling us that yesterday." Hobbes added.

Only a couple seconds after Hobbes had said that, it was really pouring. I don't mean a little drizzle. I mean _pouring_. As in, _really_ pouring. And by really pouring, I mean 'An entire lake was being dropped on everyone' pouring.

Yeah.

Sakura was thankful to have brought her parasol with her. Everyone else wasn't so lucky. Their clothes were soaked, water was dripping down their faces, and they were all-around just miserable.

"Alright, everyone!" Mr. Bill shouted, beginning to walk backwards and towards the cabins. "Change of plans! Go to your cabins and get changed, and then we've got some indoor free time!"

Everyone jumped out of their canoes and ran in the direction of their cabins, happy to get out of the rain. Sakura, on the other hand walked at a rather leisurely pace, parasol in hand. She noticed Calvin, Hobbes, and Nikola slowly walking forward, completely soaked, and offered, "You can come under here if you'd like," raising her parasol higher to try and fit everyone.

Her three drenched friends gladly accepted, trying to hide under the parasol as best they could. Sure, it still got damp from those who were already splashed, and it was also a bit smelly, but it was much preferable to the rain.

* * *

After a few minutes of walking, the group finally reached the cafeteria cabin, where the counselors had set up materials for arts and crafts, as well as some card games. The counselors had also kindly brought the campers some dry clothes from their cabins if they asked them too. While Calvin waited for one of the counselors to bring him his backpack, Hobbes, Nikola, and Sakura had set up a game of UNO.

"Red 7." Nikola said, placing down his card.

"Blue 7." Hobbes responded. "What about you, Sakura?"

The girl grinned maniacally, her face enough to give one of Calvin's 'I'm up to something' expressions a run for it's money. "YOU FOOLS!" she declared, laughing like a loon. "YOU'VE GIVEN ME THE CHANCE TO LAY DOWN MY DRAW +4 CARD! THE COLOR IS GREEN!"

Hobbes and Nikola gave her near-identical looks of surprise and alarm, clearly not expecting such an outburst from her. Calvin walked up to them, now wearing dry clothes that were apparently identical to his old clothes. "Did I miss anything?" he asked. "Because YOU certainly missed something!"

Hobbes gave another look of alarm, Sakura gave a look of interest, and Nikola just sighed. "Hoo boy." he muttered.

"While I waited for the counselors, who have apparently recognized both my glory and my suffering, I created this masterpiece!" He held up a piece of slightly-damp paper with a drawing of what looked to be poorly-illustrated towers shrouded in explosions of scribbles, with what appeared to be an attempt at drawing some odd type of birds in the sky.

"What's that supposed to be?" asked Sakura, genuinely curious.

"It's a squadron of tyrannosaurs in F-14s bombing an urban city!" Calvin declared, looking a bit too happy for what he was explaining. "Image the shock and horror that the terrifying mixture of modern and prehistoric would strike in the helpless citizens below! This picture is meant to capture the human mind's innate fear of the unknown..."

Hobbes stifled a yawn as he and Nikola turned back to their game of UNO, while Sakura listened intently. Apparently, she wasn't alone in her interest, as Mr. Frank walked up to the group, curiosity on his face.

"I see we have a budding artist here, do we?" he asked.

Calvin turned, grinning. "Why yes, I am!"

"I see." Mr. Frank noted. "This might now exactly related, but I wanted to be a scientist once."

"Really?" asked Sakura, who was now doubly interested.

"Oh, yes!" Mr. Frank told the girl. "Unfortunately, the scientific community is very choosy about who joins, and they didn't agree with me on many points."

"Oh." said Sakura.

"Well, that stinks." said Calvin. "But they won't shun me! I'm Calvin the Great, and everyone will know me by that name! I'll even have my own day! Just you wait!"

Mr. Frank chuckled. "Well, I'm sure our camp will have more than enough to support the growth of the child who'll have his own day. We could even extend it to an entire week!"

Meanwhile, Nikola groaned, and Hobbes put his hands in his head. The last thing they needed was for a counselor to _encourage_ Calvin's insanity.

Calvin, on the other hand, was grinning like the lunatic he was. Finally! Some respect! If all the other counselors were like this, then he'd have the entire camp in the palm of his hand.


	5. Calvinball: Official Camp Sport!

**Author's Note: So I'll try to get the plot started now. I've also tried to integrate more of Calvin's imagination here, as to not distance it from the original comic too much. Also, more comments and reviews would still be nice.**

 **In other news, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is out now and I highly request that you go see it. If you're not into Godzilla, then go take a look at Wikizilla after you finish this chapter so you can get started. Thank you.**

* * *

 _"My name is Bullet. Tracer Bullet. I'm a private eye. And right now I've managed to get myself into even more trouble than usual."_

 _In a busted-up bar in some unspecified town, a short man in a coat ducked behind a flipped table, trying to avoid bullets as they whizzed past him. He brought out his own pistol and fired back. The smell of gunpowder and alcohol filled the air._

 _"I had been given a case. Well, less 'given' than 'forced into it.' I usually don't decline cases, but it involved one of the worst places in town. Unfortunately, she was a pushy dame-They always are-And had already got me a ride, so I didn't have much of a choice. Long story short, I somehow managed to get caught in a shootout._

 _The thugs I were up against were big, burly, had fists the size of Texas, and frankly, they looked about as appealing to the eye as a month-old moldy loaf of bread. And they were all ganging up on me."_

 _Bullets after bullets came upon him. It was a wonder he was actually able to dodge them all. As he fired back, more men and women, wearing similar clothing to his, came up beside him, and fired at the brutes as well._

 _"Oh, yes, there was something I forgot to mention. Turns out there was a couple other private eyes that were on the same case. I don't like competition much, but we had to team up in order to survive these thugs."_

 _Suddenly, a bullet hit him in the back, causing him to crumple to the ground, gritting his teeth. Pain overcame him, he squeezed his eyes shut. It looked to be the end..._

* * *

"Calvin!" called out a voice. "Are you okay?"

Calvin blinked as Sakura came running up to him.

"Oh, nothing." he grumbled. "Just a broken-OW!"

A ball came flying in his direction, smacking him in the face.

Mr. Rob blew his whistle. "Moe, you're out! He was already down! Now drop that ball!"

Calvin rubbed his head, trying to ease the pain. At that same time, Moe threw the ball in his hands over his shoulder, which came directly at Calvin and Sakura. Thankfully, Sakura opened her parasol around just in time, causing the ball to rebound harmlessly off the umbrella. It was amazing how much Sakura's parasol could take.

It was the fourth day of camp, right in the middle of Calvin's stay at camp. Contrary to what Mr. Frank's behavior had suggested, Calvin did _not_ have the entire camp in the palm of his hands. The raining had stopped the next day, and by now most of the rain puddles had dried up, though there were still a couple damp patches here and there, which, for some reason, Calvin always ended up falling into. Not only this, but now they actually had to _hike_. The end result usually had Calvin completely worn out, and so were most of the other campers. While they didn't have to do any hiking today-Thank goodness!-They had to play dodgeball instead, which traded out the exhaustion for searing pain, most of which came from Moe's relentless aggression. Not a very good trade out, if you asked Calvin.

On the plus side, Mr. Frank kept up his interest in Calvin, though Calvin wasn't quite ready to consider him more than an acquaintance just yet. While he seemed to be interested in Calvin and his ideas, he was also rather eccentric, and more than once Calvin had seen him rubbing his hands together and chuckling to himself in a way that was very evocative of a comic book supervillain, which wasn't very comforting.

Calvin's concentration was broken when Sakura told him, "Come on, let's go sit down." She guided him towards a spot of shade where Hobbes and Nikola were currently in the middle of doing... Well, whatever they were doing.

"Question number-Oh, hey." Nikola looked up from his list that he was reading off of as he noticed the two kids walking up to them.

"What are you two doing?" asked Sakura, pointing at the list Nikola was reading off of.

"We're quizzing each other." Nikola explained. "We gave each other a list of facts about our respective places-Jungle life for Hobbes, and video games for me-And now we're seeing how much we remember."

"How are you two doing?" Sakura inquired.

"Well, Hobbes at least knows the Link isn't named Zelda and that Samus isn't named Metroid, so currently he knows slightly more than the average house plant." Nikola told them.

Hobbes growled indignantly. "Well, at least you know that tigers are the _superior_ big cat species, especially compared to lions."

"Mostly because that was _literally the only thing_ on the list you gave me." Nikola noted.

"That doesn't sound like a very good source of information." Sakura agreed.

Hobbes growled. "I am a tiger myself. Is there anything that could possibly be more trustworthy?"

"You could have a bias for your own kind." Sakura pointed out. "The data may be skewed in your favor."

Hobbes gasped in shock. "I would never!"

Calvin couldn't help but snort, then winced in pain. The hit from the ball would be hurting his head for a good while.

"So why have you two come over?" asked Nikola. "I was under the impression that you were playing dodgeball."

"We were, but Calvin got hit in the head with a ball." Sakura explained.

"Ouch." Nikola commented. "Should I get him an ice pack?"

"No, it's fine." Calvin told him. "The Dictator-For-Life of G.R.O.S.S. will not be coddled like an-Ow..." He winced from his headache.

"I think you should lie down for a little." Sakura told him, helping to guide him to a place for him to rest.

"I sense the beginning of a beautiful friendship!" Hobbes said.

Calvin glared at him as Sakura helped him take out pillows from his hyperspace backpack, which had. "We shall not speak of this in the G.R.O.S.S. handbook, ever."

"Because you like her and want to avoid your own club's rules?" Hobbes pressed.

Calvin and Nikola turned their glares upon him. "I'm sorry, did you say something?" asked the robot.

"Uh…" said Hobbes nervously, his eyes darting back and forth. "Nothing. Just that they're going to be really good friends."

Calvin snorted as he lay down on the pillow. "Look, just because I'm being nice to somebody doesn't mean I'm their friend."

"That's just his way of showing affection." Hobbes said, grinning once more.

Calvin growled at Hobbes. "Why, I oughta-Ow!" He rubbed his head again.

"You should just take it easy." Sakura told him. "Everyone, please give him some space."

"Gladly." Nikola replied, turning back to his list. "Now where was-HEY!"

Sakura sighed as Nikola chased Hobbes, who had stolen the question sheet when he wasn't looking. At least Hobbes had someone else to mess with while Calvin recovered.

* * *

By the next day, Calvin's headache had fortunately mostly disappeared. Unfortunately, however, the counselors kept throwing all kinds of sports games at Calvin, much to his chagrin. Volleyball, baseball, soccer, it didn't matter. Calvin hated it all (ESPECIALLY baseball. That brought back all sorts of bad memories).

This time around, they were taking a break from all the sports, thankfully. Calvin and the group were sitting underneath the shade of a tree. Calvin was bored out of his mind, while Sakura had joined Hobbes and Nikola in their intense quizzing of each other.

As Calvin continued to be bored, Mr. Bill walked up to the spiky-haired boy. "What's going on?" he asked. "You look rather bored."

"Why should _you_ care?" Calvin snapped irritably.

"Now, now, there's no reason to be rude here." Mr. Bill said. "You just looked bored, so I decided to see what was happening. Why haven't you joined any of the other kids and their games?"

"Why would I?" Calvin demanded. "It's always rules, rules, rules, do this, do that, team spirit, we failed because of you, blah, blah, blah! How could anyone ever call sports 'fun?'"

"Hmm..." Mr. Bill thought about how to make the situation better. "I can get why a lot of people don't like sports, but we need you to interact with the other kids _somehow_. What games do you play with your friends?"

Calvin thought for a moment. Then a grin spread across his face. "Well, there's one game that we play, and it's better than any organized sport you peasant's puny brains could ever come up with!"

Mr. Bill raised an eyebrow, intentionally ignoring Calvin's insult. He'd heard too many of those from six-year-olds for it to have any effect on him. Instead, he asked, "What's this game of yours called?"

"CALVINBALL!" Calvin shouted (Quite loudly, I must add). Hobbes, Nikola and Sakura jumped in surprise, their intense concentration broken.

"Calvinball, huh?" Mr. Bill inquired further. "What are the rules?"

"There are none!"

"No rules? How do you play without any rules?"

"You make them up as you go! The only rule that stays is that you can't use the same rule twice!"

"You make up the rules as you go? Say, that _does_ sound pretty fun!"

* * *

"What's going on over there?" asked Nikola, eyeing Calvin and Mr. Bill suspiciously. "It looks like Calvin's actually getting along an adult!"

"The last time he did that was when he got our babysitter to play Calvinball with us." Hobbes replied.

"Calvinball?" Nikola asked suspiciously. "Do I even want to know?"

Suddenly, Mr. Bill shouted, "EVERYONE, GATHER 'ROUND!" he shouted. "CALVIN HAS A NEW GAME TO INTRODUCE TO US ALL!"

"Well, it looks like we're going to know anyways." Sakura noted.

"Twinky's got a new game, huh?" Moe said, sneering sadistically.

Susie gulped. "I don't like where this is going."

"Would you do the honors?" asked Mr. Bill, gesturing to Calvin to let him explain.

Calvin was grinning like the crazed, maniacal lunatic that he was. "Rules." he began. "Organization. Teams. Don't you just hate 'em? No? Well, it doesn't matter, because _I_ utterly detest them, and that's the only opinion that matters. Because of this, I decided to create the best game ever: CALVINBALL!"

"I'm not sure whether to be impressed that Calvin might actually make Calvinball into a big sport or be utterly terrified that he's doing so." Hobbes noted from underneath their tree.

"Agreed." Nikola replied.

It was then that the robot noticed that Sakura had joined the mass of campers clustered around Calvin and Mr. Bill, and was listening intently as Calvin explained.

Nikola groaned. "You've gotta be kidding me."

Calvin carried on with his speech about the awesomeness of Calvinball. "In Calvinball, there are no rules! You make them up as you go, and the only one that sticks is that you can't play the same way twice!"

There was some oohs and aahs, but mostly there were looks of confusion. Calvin chuckled. He didn't expect many of the uncreative peasants to understand his brilliance. "Anyone care to demonstrate with me?" he asked.

Sakura immediately jumped up and down, her hand in the air. "Me! Me! Me! I wanna play!"

"I'll help demonstrate, too!" Mr. Bill pitched in.

"Good, good." Calvin said, a rather sinister-looking grin on his face. "Well, first we'll need something to play with. Most importantly, we need the Calvinball-Any ball of decent size will do."

Mr. Bill handed Calvin a volleyball. "Will this one do?" he asked.

"Yes, this is perfect!" Calvin exclaimed. He took the ball, and said, "Now that I have the Calvinball, I decree that you must chase me while hopping on one leg!"

With that, he took off running in the opposite direction. Sakura and Mr. Bill followed, hopping on one leg like Calvin told them to do. Seeing as how Calvin had access to both legs, he easily outsped them. He then leaned against a tree, supporting himself with his free hand and smirking confidently.

Just then, Sakura had an idea to counter Calvin. "You're touching the Reversal Tree!" she declared. "Now we get both legs and you have to hop on one foot!"

Calvin looked from the tree to Sakura, his smile fading. He then grumbled and hopped away on one foot. Now that the situations were reversed, Sakura easily caught up to him and took the ball.

"Yes!" she shouted. "I have the Calvinball now!"

"But now you have to hop around on one foot!" someone from the crown pointed out.

"Oh, yeah..." Sakura said, realizing that she had just put herself in a sticky situation.

As the realization sunk in, a girl ran by, grabbed the Calvinball, and declared, "I declare that the Calvinball holder can run with both legs and everyone else must walk!"

"But you have to toss it to me now!" a boy shouted at her. "If you hold the Calvinball and make a new rule, you have to toss it to me!"

"You never declared that!" the girl shouted at him.

"I hold the Invisible Salamander of Silence!" the boy countered. "I can make new rules without saying them!"

Calvin grinned. This was going better than he could have ever imagined! Now that Calvinball was being spread throughout the camp, Calvin would turn what would have been one of the worst experiences of his life into one of the best!

* * *

It had been over an hour or two, and everything was going smoothly-Well, about as smoothly as a game with made-up rules could go. Now the entire camp had gotten involved, and everyone was making their own rules. It was glorious.

Except for the fact the Moe was now barreling towards Calvin at top speed in an attempt to grab the Calvinball. That was less than glorious, to say the least.

"If you don't give me the ball, I'll clobber you!" Moe told him. "It's a rule now!"

"You can't do that!" Calvin told him. "You made that rule last time!"

Moe paused for a moment, trying to think about a way to beat up Calvin. Calvin took the opportunity to run in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, Moe discovered a way to to use Calvin as his personal punching bag rather quickly.

"New rule!" the brute shouted. "If someone has the ball, you can punch them!"

Moe's friends turned towards Calvin, smirking sadistically. They began to close in on him on all angles. While there were only three of them, Moe included, their bulk made Calvin's escape routes close up pretty quickly.

"Any last words, Twinky?" Moe asked him.

Calvin looked at each of the three bullies, then to the Calvinball, and handed it to Moe.

"Here." he said. "Also, you can only punch whoever has the Calvinball. You have to let anyone who doesn't have it through safely."

Moe could only watch in shock as his allies turned against him. Calvin smirked smugly as he quickly ran away from the carnage. He weaved his way through the players watching the fight and reached the shade of a tree that Hobbes, Nikola, and Sakura were resting under.

"So first the Calvinball was an advantage, and now it's a 'Kick me' sign." Nikola observed. "The nature of this game sure changes quickly."

"That's the point of a disorganized sport!" Calvin told him. "If you aren't turning rules on their heads, then you're not really playing Calvinball!"

"I wonder how long it'll be before the counselors notice all the fighting and stop the game." Hobbes noted.

"If they can even see through all the campers." Sakura added.

"Either way, I got to get back at Moe for once, and that's a win in my book." Calvin said, smirking in satisfaction."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the Calvinball sailed over their heads, followed by Moe shouting. "Hey, Twinky! The ball went into the forest and you're on the Tree of Getting Things! The rules say you have to get it now! Ha ha!"

Cavin scowled as Moe walked away, laughing his head off.

"Looks like you spoke too soon." Hobbes said.

"Don't worry. I'll help you find it." Sakura told him. "I was under the tree, too."

"Then I'm going with you." Nikola jumped in.

"You?" asked Calvin. "Why? What's in it for you?"

"I was referring to Sakura." Nikola told him. "I'm not letting her go into the woods with only you and multiple potentially dangerous wild animals as company. It's not safe for her. I haven't known you long enough to care about you and your boring, tedious task."

"It's nice to see you all looking out for each other," Hobbes said, beginning to get up. "But I think I'll be going back to the cabin and have some tuna, take a nap, maybe draw moustache on all of Calvin's Captain Napalm comics..."

"Oh, no you don't!" Calvin told him, grabbing the tiger by the tail. "We're all in this together!"

"Ack! No! You heard Nikola! There's lots of dangerous animals out there! I'm too young to loose one of my nine lives! HELP!" Hobbes whined and complained as Calvin dragged him into the woods, but it was no use. He was coming with the rest of the group, and that was that.

* * *

It had been a couple hours now, and there was still no sign of the ball. Exhaustion was taking it's toll on the group, and they had decided to settle down for a break. Calvin rummaged around in his backpack-Which Hobbes had managed to convince him to bring, in case there was something in the backpack's pocket dimension that they might need at some point-And brought out a package of bread and various assorted condiments. Everyone took a slice and made themselves sandwiches-Minus Nikola, who, being a robot, couldn't eat.

"Stupid Moe." Calvin muttered between bites. "If it weren't for him, we wouldn't be out here, looking for a stupid ball."

"Well, you _did_ get Mr. Bill to make everyone play Calvinball." Hobbes pointed out.

Calvin grumbled to himself irritably.

"Maybe we should go back to camp." Sakura suggested. "Everyone's probably worried about us, and I'm sure Mr. Bill and the rest of the counselors can help us find that ball."

"Yeah, that would be nice." Nikola said. "I also need to swap out my batteries."

"Speaking of which, where _is_ the camp?" Hobbes asked.

Everyone stood up and looked around, realization dawning on them.

"Oh no." Hobbes said, beginning to panic. "Oh no oh no oh no."

"Please don't tell me what I think is going on." Nikola muttered under his breath.

"WE'RE LOST IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!" Calvin shouted.

"And he said it." Nikola grumbled.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Now that we've finally finished those five boring chapters of camp activities, we can actually get to the fun stuff. Yay. Oh, and just so you don't forget, feedback would be immensely appreciated. See you next chapter, I guess.**


	6. Lost in the Woods

**Author's Note: Yeah, I got nothing. Wait, no, I do-Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night came out recently, and I order you to play it and spread the word if you are of the age to do so (It's rated T, so basically anyone in the double digits). For a brief summary, it's a Metroidvania game, so it's side-scrolling and exploration-based with RPG elements and platforming, and you must get it immediately.**

 **Now that the advertising is over with, read away.**

 **EDIT: So the aforementioned game has consumed my life until recently, when I beat it, and even then it's going to consume another quarter as I attempt to attain 100% completion like the lunatic I am. That, combined with a week of going out without my laptop, has prevented me from writing for quite a while. Don't worry, though, I'll get back to work as soon as possible. Just thought you might want to know, since the wait between chapters might reach over a month again.**

 **P.S. You still need to get Bloodstained if you haven't already.**

* * *

 _"The intrepid Spaceman Spiff has, once again, found himself stuck on an unfamiliar, hostile planet!"_

 _A short man in a blue-and-yellow spacesuit climbed out of the remains of a red, saucer-like spaceship. In contrast to the usual barren wasteland that he seemed to keep finding himself on, this was a raging jungle, with most of the sunlight being filtered out by the canopy's massive leaves. The air was filled with the buzzing of alien insects and the smell or wet plant matter._

 _"Thankfully, Spiff is not alone! With him are his co-pilot Spaceman Mort of the Planet Tiger, fellow human Spacewoman Delphia, and her robotic assistant NK-1A! With their help, Spiff may be able to last long enough until a rescue mission is sent!"_

 _Suddenly, a rustling noise came from the bushes beside the group. Everyone turned towards the source of the sound. Spiff signaled that he would go first. He slowly began advancing towards it, when suddenly, A HORRIBLE MONSTER BURST OUT!_

* * *

Hobbes, Nikola, and Sakura watched as Calvin screamed and pointed at a squirrel coming out of the bushes.

"Calvin, you're freaking out over a squirrel." Nikola told the blond lunatic.

"It's a chipmunk, actually." Sakura told him.

"Who cares?!" Nikola demanded, trowing his arms up. "A small, harmless rodent is a small harmless rodent, and Calvin's still freaking out over it!"

A thump was heard as Calvin tripped over a rock and fell face-first into the ground. The chipmunk stared ahead for a few seconds, as if trying to comprehend the stupidity taking place in front of it, before giving up and running off into the woods.

Nikola clapped sarcastically at Calvin's failure. "Bravo. I applaud you, o brave hero."

"Shut up." Calvin grumbled irritably.

"Hey, guys?" asked Sakura. "Don't you think we should be looking for a way back to the camp?"

"She has a point." Hobbes agreed.

"In that case, I declare myself the leader of the group!" Calvin declared.

"You?" asked Nikola.

"Yeah, I don't see that going very well." Hobbes agreed.

"How about a vote?" suggested Sakura.

"In that case, everyone who agrees that Calvin the Great and Bold should be the leader, say 'Aye!'" Calvin shouted, posing heroically.

"...Did he make up that nickname just now?" asked Nikola.

"Probably." Hobbes commented.

"Now, anyone who _doesn't_ think Calvin should be our leader, say 'Aye.'" Sakura said.

"Aye." Hobbes, Nikola, and Sakura all said at the same time.

"Well, I guess that settles it." Nikola said. "Calvin won't be leader. Moving on."

"What?!" Calvin spluttered, shocked. "But I'm a natural born leader! I even lead my own club! I've got way more experience in leading than any of you!"

Evidently, nobody was listening, seeing as they walked off without looking back. Calvin was forced to hurry to catch up with them.

* * *

As time went on, night began to fall, and there was still no sign of the camp. The group's objective had slowly switched from finding camp to finding a safe place to sleep for the night. The group slowly became more and more tired, and the nighttime forest noises kept them on edge. Currently, they were sitting in the shade of a tree.

"I don't see how this could get any worse." Hobbes grumbled.

Nikola whacked him on the head. "Don't say that. If you say things like that, it _will_ get worse."

Sakura sighed. "If only we could just pull a safe sleeping space out of our backpacks or something."

Suddenly, Calvin got an idea. A grin spread across his face. "Actually, I think I might have something like that."

Hobbes gulped nervously. He didn't like where this was going. "Oh no..."

Calvin took off his backpack and began rooting through it. In doing so, he tossed an increasingly absurd assortment of objects over his shoulder, including what had to be hundreds of issues of comic books, an air horn, a roll of toilet paper, a mushroom, a copy of some video game he didn't know about (Castle-something-or-other, I think), a Waddle Dee, and an entire swordfish, before finally dragging a corrugated cardboard box out of the backpack.

Hobbes' eyes bulged out of their sockets when he saw the box, and he immediately scrambled up the nearest tree. Sakura stared, slack-jawed at the massive pile of assorted junk that had come out of Calvin's backpack, and Nikola lamented his robotic nature, which prevented him from taking some much-needed antipsychotic medication.

"BEHOLD!" Calvin declared, ignoring his allies' apparent mental breakdowns. "My greatest invention, the cardboard box! While it may look like a normal containment for shipping various assorted objects, it is in fact a highly versatile device!"

He drew a marker from his pocket, and began writing something on the box in messy, childish drawl. "Observe!"

Calvin had written the word "Transmogrifier" on the side of the box, which now had it's open end facing the ground. Calvin slid under the box, and a _ZA_ _P!_ came from under the box. The box was lifted up again, and out stepped a Calvin-sized tiger!

"As you can see, I have turned myself into a fully functional tiger!" the tiger announced. "Inside the Transmogrifier is a dial to determine what I shall become! To turn back, I just need to set the dial to 'Boy", and I'm back to me again! Watch!"

Calvin stepped back under the Transmogrifier, and with another _ZAP!_ , Calvin was himself once again.

"A-B-But... How-" Sakura stuttered, at a complete loss of words from the scientifically impossible act that had just transpired in front of her.

"It can also transform into a Duplicator, a Time Machine, and a Cerebral Enhance-O-Tron, just to name a few, but I don't have the time to show you their many amazing functions." Calvin boasted. "All I have to do is cross out the current label, like this..." He drew a line over the words with the marker, and all the black ink disappeared. "And now I am free to write the title of whatever device I need upon the box's surface!"

Sakura could only let out a disbelieving wheeze, her science-based brain not comprehending Calvin's absurd invention.

"Impressive." Nikola stated simply. "Now, do you think you could take that magic marker of yours and turn the box into a safe place to sleep for all four of us?"

"Actually, you can make that just three." Hobbes said nervously from his tree. "I think I'm fine up here. I'll act as security."

"Get down here, you sissy!" Calvin scolded him, writing "Four-Person Sleeping Fortress" on the box. As he did so, he walked around the edges, as he clearly couldn't squeeze all those words onto one side of the box.

Suddenly, the box flipped upside-down, so that the open side was facing upwards, and expanded. A ladder appeared inside the box, disappearing into an inky-black darkness.

"I'm sure there's a more eloquent way to express the term you're looking for, but okay, then." Nikola muttered.

"Are you sure that's going to fit us all?" Sakura questioned. "It looks just big enough to fit Hobbes while curled up."

"I'll check it out." Calvin told them. "It's a new invention, after all. Even I don't know how it'll go."

"You mean you don't know your own creation works?!" Nikola groaned as Calvin disappeared into the box. "Good grief, you're even dumber than I thought."

"Hey, it's bigger on the inside!" Calvin exclaimed from within the box as a light turned on inside of it.

Nikola and Sakura ran over to see that the box's ladder led to a room, surprisingly large for the box's size, with two beds and a nightstand for each. A blue carpet lay between the two beds.

"Huh." Nikola said. "Not bad."

Sakura climbed down the ladder, a look of disbelief and resignation on her face. Nikola began to climb down as well, until he realized that Hobbes was still in the tree.

"Are you seriously going to stay up there for the entire night?" he asked.

"I'm not getting in that box!" Hobbes shot back. "Every time Calvin brings out that cardboard death trap, bad things happen!"

"Okay, then." Nikola said, resuming his descent. "If you roll off a branch in your sleep and get devoured by nocturnal hunters, don't say I didn't warn you."

Hobbes jumped up at the mention of getting eaten, and quickly rushed down the tree. "Changed my mind, I want in! Hey, don't close the box! LET ME IN!"

* * *

A good while earlier, Calvin's parents had arrived at the camp, and were desperately asking the counselors questions about the whereabouts of their son. Mr. Bill tried to answer as best as he could, which wasn't made easy by the campers that were trying to eavesdrop on the adult's conversations.

"I told you, we've tried our best to find them." Mr Bill explained. "We're sending out a search party tomorrow. It's too late for anything now. We have some open cabins, if you need a place to sleep."

Mr. Bill walked off in the direction of the counselor's cabins. Mom desperately tried to hold back a wave of emotions threatening to burst.

"Hey, look on the bright side!" Dad said, trying to lighten the mood. "Just think about how much character Calvin will have built when we find him!"

Wrong move.

"IS THAT REALLY WHAT YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW?!" Mom exploded, the wave of emotions bursting through the dam. "OUR SON IS LOST, AND YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT BUILDING CHARACTER?! IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU CARE ABOUT, OR DO YOU JUST LIKE MAKING UP EXCUSES TO SEE US MISERABLE?!"

And with that, she turned around and stormed off, tears in her eyes. Dad could only watch in stunned silence, trying to ignore the guilt that was building up inside. The many campers that had secretly been spying on the arguing parents watched with wide eyes. Mr. Bill, who has come out just in time to see Mom's outburst, quickly began to guide the stunned children away to the camp theater, where Mr. Grizz-The stuffed bear from Chapter 3, remember?-Had been set up, among other various objects. Some of the other counselors were standing on the stage, as well.

After all the campers had gathered around the stage, he began to speak. "I know things have been a little tense lately." he told them. "I know that many of you are worried about our fellow campers, Calvin and Sakura. But don't worry. We will find them, I promise. In the meantime, me, my fellow campers, and Mr. Grizz have set up a show for you, so you can take your mind off your worries."

Susie sat right in the middle of the semicircle of seats, her head in her hands. Despite the troubles that Calvin regularly put her through, she couldn't help but worry for him.

Just then, she noticed something: Every counselor was there except Mr. Frank. Susie brought a list of all the counselors that she had as a just in case but never used and checked all the counselors of the stage. Yep. Mr. Frank was the only one that wasn't there.

 _'He's probably managing something.'_ Susie told herself. Still, something told her that not all was right...

* * *

Hours had gone by, and the group was sleeping peacefully inside their secure box-fort. Everyone was tired from the long day of searching, and nobody had so much as opened their eyes once.

However, that peace was about to end.

Somewhere in the woods where the box-fort lay, a rustling came from the bushes. Suddenly, a small, furry little bear cub popped out of the bushes, right next to the box-fort. Noticing the odd, cardboard cube, it gently nudged it, curious as to what it was.

* * *

Inside the box-fort, the sleeping group began to stir. Calvin and Hobbes shared a bed, like usual, and Sakura slept alone, as Nikola, being a hard, plastic robot, was not something comfortable to sleep with. Nikola himself was recharging his batteries next to the wall.

The robot's plastic eyelids opened, and his big blue eyes turned on. His organic friends stretched and yawned, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. Their slow awaking was sped up when the box was rocked once more.

Hobbes jumped up, his fur standing on end. "HORSE FEATHER MONSTERS EATING A TUNA FISH SANDWICH!" he screamed.

Calvin, Nikola, and Sakura all stared at him, questioning the meaning of what he said, before deciding that it probably didn't mean anything. Suddenly, the entire box fell on it's side, causing everyone to tumble into the wall.

"Get off!" Calvin grumbled, throwing Hobbes off of himself.

"What's going on?" Sakura asked, righting herself from against the wall.

"Evidently, something has pushed us over." Calvin explained.

"Thank you, Sir Captain Obvious." Nikola told him.

"Shut up." Calvin muttered as he opened a hidden hatch in the roof (Which, due to the flipping of the box, was now the wall).

Hobbes, Sakura, and Nikola peered over Calvin to look at the screen that the hidden hatch led to.

"Why do you have a screen inside the wall?" asked Hobbes.

"It's a security camera, dummy." Calvin explained, sounding exasperated at Hobbes not figuring out his reasoning in the first place. "I can't have a secure sleeping fort without any security cameras, can I?"

Checking the security camera, Calvin found that the source of all the rocking was a tiny little bear cub, which was pawing and nudging the box, eyes wide with curiosity.

"Uh oh." Sakura said, worried. "That's not good."

"Ah, don't be so dramatic." Calvin casually brushed her off. "It's just a bear cub. What could it possibly do?"

"But if the cub is here, then the mother is probably somewhere close by." Sakura pointed out.

"Oh." Calvin realized. "I suppose that _would_ be rather problematic."

Just as the words had left Calvin's mouth, the massive figure of the mother bear filled the security camera. The giant bear grabbed the box in her hands, and lifted it up, turning it over to observe the odd contraption, tossing the group around in the process.

"I don't suppose you have a way to make her stop, do you?!" Nikola shouted. The mother bear had now graduated to wildly shaking the box up and down.

Suddenly, a loud screech cut through the air, startling the mother bear into dropping the box. The bear cub instinctively ran behind it's mother, while the box tumbled away from the two and down a hill.

The group picked themselves off the floor of the box, which had conveniently landed on it's bottom, with the top facing upwards.

"Huh. I guess you _did_ have a security feature installed in this thing." Nikola noted.

"Actually, I don't seem to recall having a security system installed aside from the cameras." Calvin informed him.

"But if the noise wasn't from the box," Hobbes asked. "Then where did it come from?"

Suddenly, the box was lifted up again.

"Oh boy." Nikola muttered. "Here we go again."

The group clustered around the security camera once more and gasped. Staring at the screen was a robot.

It wasn't a robot like Nikola, though. This robot was tall, thin, and made of metal, as opposed to Nikola's plastic. It was humanoid, with long, thin limbs, and a single red visor for an eye on it's flat, rounded head.

A red net of light emerged from it's head and onto the box as it scanned it. A brief flash of light emitted from it's visor, and it paused for a moment.

"Now what?" asked Nikola. "Do we just crawl out and bonk that thing on it's head?"

"I'm not sure if that's a good idea." Sakura told him. "We don't know what it can do."

"She has a point." agreed Hobbes. "It could have laser vision, or something!"

"It would be really cool if it did!" said Calvin, missing the point by about a mile or so.

Everyone turned to glare at him. "What?"

Suddenly, the robot began moving forwards, still carrying the box.

"Hey, it started moving!" said Calvin.

"Tell us something we don't know, Captain Obvious!" Nikola told him.

"Where's it going?" asked Hobbes.

"How should I know?!" demanded Calvin. "I don't even know where this thing came from, or why it's here, or who it's working for, or if it works for anyone at all! I know nothing about this thing!"

"Well, that's comforting." muttered Hobbes. "Getting carried around in a cardboard death trap by a random robot to who knows where. Why can't we just jump out, beat it up, and make a break for it?"

"The box was installed with an auto-lock feature for when it's in motion, so that nobody falls out." Calvin explained, reading from an instruction manual that he had pulled out from a compartment in the wall.

"Wait, why are you reading from an instruction manual?" asked Sakura. "Aren't you supposed to know what your own invention does?"

Calvin shrugged. "It comes with having an all-purpose transforming device. There's so many potential uses pre-installed that you can't know what they all do until you test them out."

Everyone groaned in response to that comforting bit of information. Now that they knew they couldn't do anything, the only thing they could do was wait until they reached their destination.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the camp, Mr. Frank grinned maniacally, rubbing his hands together the way only supervillians could pull off. His machines had searched everywhere over the night, and then the spiky-haired kid had fallen right into his hands! What luck! He didn't know what to do with the girl, but he was sure the tiger and the robot would have their uses.

He couldn't help but picture his new prisoner's faces when they saw that the mastermind behind all this was really Mr. Frank, the eccentric camp counselor! However, they wouldn't know him as Mr. Frank. They would instead know him as...

Well, I can't say it now. That would ruin the impact. But they would know his name. He would make sure of it.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Well, that was certainly a twist. A twist that most of you probably saw coming, but a twist nonetheless. Anyways, now that the plot's finally been moved along, we can actually get to the fun stuff that I mentioned last chapter (And I mean it this time)!**

 **Oh, and just so you all know, Mr. Frank isn't Doctor Brainstorm from Swing123's and Garfieldodie's Calvin and Hobbes: The Series. He does have a fair bit of inspiration, but Camp Scientist shares zero continuity with Calvin and Hobbes: The Series. It is pretty heavily inspired by it, though.**

 **Stay tuned for the next chapters, because that's where stuff _really_ picks up!**


	7. Imprisoned in the Evil Lair

**Author's Note: As I stated in edited part the Author's Note from last chapter, I had a period of break from Fanfiction, so that contributed to the lateness of the update. _Then_ Fire Emblem: Three Houses came out, and two days after that Shark Week started up, and I just didn't have the time to write. Thankfully, the only thing that's coming out in the near future that's going to take over my life is Astral Chain, which comes out on August 30th.**

 **However, summer's coming to a close, and we're all coming back from vacation, going back to our jobs, or starting a new year of school, and I'm no different. I'll try to get back into regularly updating on Fanfiction, but I won't make a promise on the grounds that I might not be able to find the time. Just know that while it might take some time, I will finish Camp Scientist, and I am not going to cancel it.**

 **Anyways, this chapter is a bit shorter than usual, since I didn't have much time to write and I didn't want to keep everyone waiting. However, starting from now the story will gradually begin to get a bit more tense, although it won't be anything too serious. Also, feedback is still appreciated. Thank you.**

 **P.S. To all readers, you need to get both Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Astral Chain if you can. Seriously, they're amazing games and you need to play them.**

* * *

It was early morning, on the second-to-last day of the week, and the whole camp was in an uproar. First of all, when Mr. Bill got up early to wake up the other counselors, he discovered that not only had Mr. Frank seemingly disappeared, his entire room had been emptied out! Despite searching everywhere for him, there was no trace of the eccentric counselor. After a brief discussion, the rest of the counselors had agreed to not tell the campers about the situation until they found him.

Unfortunately, that didn't change a thing about the fact that Calvin and Sakura were still missing. By now, Sakura's guardian-Her aunt, in this case-Had shown up as well, and was also questioning the counselors about the status of her niece. Adding to the chaos was the fact that now more parents and guardians were asking if their child was safe, with some going as far as to take their children home early, demanding for refunds.

To put it simply, it was not a good time for Camp Scientist.

Mr. Bill sighed. He sat in the theater circle, watching as the campers left to enjoy the period of free time that the counselors had given them. He turned to Mr. Grizz, who had been brought out for an early display. He stared at the stuffed bear for a minute, wondering how everything had ended up this way.

Suddenly, he stood up. He knew what had to be done. He picked up the stuffed bear and went to his cabin to back the essentials.

He was going to go out and search for the missing campers.

* * *

Calvin, Hobbes, Nikola and Sakura were lying on the floor of the box, waiting for their mechanical kidnapper to reach whatever destination it was heading to. It was all they really could do, as the security cameras had run out of power a good while ago, as Calvin had forgotten to refill the milk carton that fueled the box ("Orange juice would have been preferable," Calvin had explained. "but my parents hadn't gone to the grocery store for a while, so had to go with milk.")

Yeah, you read that right. The all-purpose cardboard box runs on milk. The rest of the group were just as dumbfounded as you probably are.

Anyhow, the four were currently bored out of their minds. Perhaps it was the cozy box-room they were trapped in, but the situation didn't really have a very dire feel to it. As a result, they were a lot less worried that they ought to be.

"I wonder if the robot's reached it's destination already and we just haven't realized it because the box ran out of power." Calvin wondered aloud.

"How do you suppose we would be able to check that?" Hobbes asked.

"We can't." Calvin told him. "We don't have any power. The whole point of wondering is not knowing the answer to your questions, Hobbes."

"Then shouldn't we check it out?" Hobbes pointed out. "Can't we just peek our head the top?"

"No, it's too risky." Calvin told him. "We don't know what's out there, or what could be watching us."

"Then why don't we use the cameras?" Hobbes pressed further.

"I was under the impression we all knew that we're not using the cameras because there's no power." Nikola told him.

"Touché." Hobbes told him. "I think spending an hour plus in the same room with Calvin is doing a number on our mental health."

"Wait." Sakura suddenly sat up as a lightbulb turned on in her brain. "If Calvin was originally intending to use juice as a fuel source, then shouldn't we be checking his bag to see if he brought any juice boxes with him?"

For a couple of seconds, there was complete silence as the four realized just how stupid they were to not search for a new fuel source in Calvin's infinite backpack. Then they all rushed to the aforementioned backpack and began rooting through it in hopes of finding an extra milk carton or juice box.

Finally, Calvin pulled out a juice box and held it above his head in triumph. This brief moment of victory was soon interrupted when the box suddenly shook, sending the group tumbling across the floor of the cardboard cube.

Conveniently, Calvin landed right next to the compartment to put potential fuel sources in. He opened the flap, swapped out the milk carton in favor of the juice box, and looked as the security camera screen flickered back to life next to him.

As the group all gathered around the screen, Calvin used a pair of levers on next to the screen to move the camera around, showing that the box had been put in a small room, caged by bars of glowing red energy from the low ceiling above. A pair of robots casually patrolled the rather wide hallway beyond the bars.

"Well now," Hobbes groaned. "That's just lovely. We're trapped in some weird, hi-tech fortress, in a prison cell made with lasers, _patrolled by robots, **with no obvious way of getting home, ALL BECAUSE CALVIN GOT SHIPPED OFF TO SUMMER CAMP AND INTRODUCED CALVINBALL TO EVERYONE!**_ "

"Hey, it's not my fault my parents decided to not tell me they were getting rid of me without my consent until the very last second!" Calvin snapped irritably. "You didn't have to come with me, either!"

"If that's so, then why did you drag me down with you?!" Hobbes demanded. "You took all the fish in the house with you, said something about how we're all in this together, so on, so on, and just _would not shut up_ until I came!"

"And that's on you for even listening!" Calvin shouted back.

"So are we going to stand around and play hot potato with who's in the wrong, or are we actually going to try to get out?" Nikola asked the arguing duo.

"SHUT UP!" Calvin and Hobbes snapped simultaneously. "This doesn't concern you!"

"Doesn't concern me, huh?" Nikola growled, his frustration mounting. "I'm sorry, but this entire mess concerned me as soon as you two buffoons dragged Sakura into this! She's lived practically my whole life with me around, she looks up to me, I act as a figure of authority and an example for her, and I have every right to call her my sister, and what kind of brother would I be to just leave my sister's safety in the hands of a moronic six-year-old with a disproportionately-sized ego who got us stuck in a forest because of a game he invented and a tiger who runs at the first sign of danger?!"

"Excuse me?" Hobbes demanded indignantly. "I don't run at the first sign of danger, I run at the first sign of stupidity-Or I would, if Sir Vapors-For-Brains here didn't drag me into his messes!" He jabbed his thumb in Calvin's direction, then turned his attention back to Nikola. "And if you were really trying to keep Sakura safe, you would have done the same thing as I've been planning to do and gotten out of here!"

Sakura's head darted back and forth as she watched her friends, both old and new, verbally tear into each other, driven by the stress of being prisoners, being cooped up in a box-room for hours, and each other's stupidity. Her hands balled into fists and she grit her teeth. They was getting nowhere, everyone was at each other's throats, and their shouts bounced off the walls, creating a cacophony of anger. It was too much.

Enough was enough.

"STOP IT!" Sakura shouted. "ALL OF YOU, STOP IT! Yes, we're stuck in some creepy evil lair, and yes, we've all made some mistakes, but getting into fights won't get us anywhere! We have to work together, not pin the blame on each other!"

The girl took a deep breath in, her furious rant finished. Silence filled the room. Calvin, Hobbes, and Nikola's arguing ceases as they thought about what they had done.

Finally, Hobbes spoke up. "I'm sorry for blowing up there." he said. "It's just that this whole time, mess upon mess has been piling up, and it's just been getting worse and worse, and we've been cooped up in the box for a while doing nothing, and I guess it all just got to me. And sorry to you, Nikola. You're tasked with looking out for Sakura, and you have every right to worry for her."

"No, it's all on me." Nikola told him. "As soon as I was shouted at, I just snapped immediately. If I actually was trying to be the responsible person here, I would've kept calm and tried to defuse the situation."

Calvin looked away, obviously feeling guilty, but also conflicting with his pride and ego. As everyone's eyes turned towards him, he eventually caved.

"Okay, fine, I'll admit it." he sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for dragging you all into this. I'm sorry for shouting at you all. I'm sorry for getting us captured by a robot that dragged us into some creepy, evil lair. There, I said it. Are we all done with the apologies now?"

"Well, if we're just gonna stand here and say sorry over and over again, it would bore the readers and we would still be stuck in here." Nikola told him. His usual demeanor and sarcasm seemed to be returning to him. "With that considered, I'd say we should probably start figuring out a plan to get us out of here."

Calvin stepped up to the dashboard of the box. "If we're going to form a plan," he said, "We should observe our situation, and what we can do about it." He gestured to the footage of the glowing laser cage on the screen. "For one, we're going to have to do something about those energy bars without those robot guards noticing us."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the bars suddenly vanished. The robot patrols, which happened to be passing by the box's cell at that very moment, looked around in confusion. A loud, beeping alarm resonated throughout the room, which was illuminated by a flashing red light.

The robot guards seemed to notice something out of the camera's reach, as they ran to the camera's left-hand side and out of view.

Everyone in the box blinked in surprise. Calvin shrugged. "Never mind, the bars and guards have already been dealt with."

The spiky-haired kid walked over to the ladder on the side of the box and began climbing it.

"Calvin, wait!" Hobbes shouted. "We don't have a plan! How are we supposed to get out of here without a plan?!"

"We'll search every corner of this place until we find a way out!" Calvin told him.

"Are you crazy?!" Hobbes shouted back. "Who knows how long that could take, or what could be hiding a round that corner."

"As a fan of the Metroidvania genre, I can say that what Hobbes is saying is totally accurate." Nikola added.

"Well, it's not like we have any other options." Calvin told them. "I mean, we _could_ just sit around until we decompose, but that would be really boring, wouldn't it?"

Hobbes, Sakura, and Nikola all looked at each other. As bad as Calvin's strategy was, they didn't have many options readily available, and whatever had turned off the bars had also given them an opportunity they had to take advantage of. After a moment of considering their available options, they all decided to follow Calvin out of the box.

Calvin emerged from the box first, followed by Sakura, then Nikola, with Hobbes coming out last, Calvin's backpack slung over his shoulder. After they had all exited the box, Calvin reached into his pocket, brought out a black marker, and wrote the word "Shrink" on the box's side. In a bright flash of light, the box disappeared, a Rubik's Cube appearing in it's place.

"YOU CAN SHRINK THAT THING DOWN?!" Hobbes demanded.

"Well, it's a lot more convenient than having to lug it around everywhere." Calvin shrugged, then somehow managed to put the Rubik's Cube in his overly spiky hair, completely hiding the disguised invention.

By now, Hobbes had curled into a traumatized ball in the corner, horrified by the realization that Calvin could now bring his cardboard death machine with him wherever he went without anyone knowing. Nikola sighed and grabbed the traumatized tiger by the arm. "Come on, Hobbes." he told him. "I want to get out of here as much as you do, and I can't leave you here or else my conscience would drag me down into the abyss of guilt. Calvin, Sakura, help me out here, will you?"

As Sakura and Calvin ran over to assist their robot friend (Rather begrudgingly, in Calvin's case), a hidden camera on the ceiling narrowed it's glowing red lens on the group...

* * *

The man who had been claiming to be Mr. Frank for the past couple months slammed his fist on the desktop in frustration. His eyes glared at the group on the security camera screens. Everything had been going according to plan until _those two_ had escaped and started disabling the base's power generators. He would have to put them on extra security once he caught them again.

Suddenly, a _ping!_ noise from his right. A screen revealed a man walking through the forest, with a massive, dark object lumbering along behind him. Narrowing his eyes, "Mr. Frank" realized that the man was, in fact, Mr. Bill! What was he doing in the forest?!

"Mr. Frank" sat up abruptly. This endangered his entire plan! Could Mr. Bill be on to him? Preposterous! And what could that massive figure behind him be?

The secret mastermind breathed deeply, then sat back down and brought up a separate tab on his screen, revealing a list of all the robots in the building. His fingers flew over the keyboards, highlighting the units and changing their commands. Their goal now was to capture those kids, and preferably the tiger and robot, if possible. The boy's unique mind was the key to his victory, and while he wasn't quite sure what his devices had detected in the girl, he was sure it was a revolution waiting to begin.

Once he got his hands on them, any and all obstacles in his path would crumble, and the world would fear and respect him as...

No, can't reveal it just yet. Maybe I'll tell you later, but not now.

However, you will know it soon. Very, very soon...

* * *

 **Author's Note: And once again, I avoid providing you with Mr. Frank's real name. It'll come eventually I assure you, just not now.**

 **Anyways, I told you it would be a shorter chapter. This is what happens when you fail to upload anything for a month or two and then hurry to give your readers an update for once. Hopefully I won't have to deal with this sort of situation again. I'll try to finish Camp Scientist before the end of 2019, but I can't make any promises.**

 **I'll see you when I finish the next chapter, which will hopefully not turn out to be after another two months of nothing. Until then, bye.**


	8. Calvin's Overconfidence Screws Him Over

**Author's Note: Remember when I said I wouldn't take another month-long break from fanfiction? Well, that turned out to be a lie. Sue me.**

 **Anyways, I've had a lot going on lately, not the least of which being the recent releases of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Astral Chain, both of which are very good games that you are required to play. Thankfully, September didn't have any major releases, so I was able to get my writing schedule back together and finish up this chapter.**

 **As a trade-off, October is bringing me _two_ ports to the Switch in rapid succession (Overwatch and A Hat In Time, for those who are wondering), so now I might have my life completely dominated by gaming once more. Welp.**

 **On a different note, this chapter should be the beginning of the end for this story, while also introducing a couple of classic comic characters into the mix. I bet you can guess who they are before you get to the part where they come in. This also might be one of the darkest chapters in the story, but don't worry. It'll all turn out fine in the end.**

 **Lastly, I want to thank those who have given me reviews to this story so far, and am hopeful for more feedback in the future.**

 **Alright, I'm done rambling now. Read away.**

* * *

It had been quite some time since the group had escaped their cage. Since there weren't any clocks in the mysterious lair, and Calvin had conveniently forgotten his watch back at camp before they went into the forest, they had no way of checking the time. They just knew that it had been a long time since they had escaped.

Due to the long time they had spent without any idea of where they were going and only each other for company, the group had all gone slightly insane. Hobbes was alternating between licking his lips and chewing on his claws, Nikola was quietly vocalizing various video game songs, and Sakura was tightly hugging her parasol. The only one who wasn't displaying abnormal behavior for themselves was Calvin, who was already a deranged lunatic.

Early after they had escaped, the group had been rather talkative, but that faded out as exhaustion began to kick in. As a result, they had all fallen silent for a good while, until Sakura noticed that, on what was probably the tenth time around that particular corner, there seemed to be a square tile on the floor outlined in a faint green light, causing it to stand out against the solid, silvery floor that the walked on.

"Hey! Over here!" she shouted, her voice reverberating off the walls. As the long-untouched silence was broken, the effect was immediate. Calvin, who was bored to the point of almost falling asleep, jumped up and started screaming about homicidal psycho mutant killer snow goons from another planet or something along those lines, Hobbes' jungle instincts kicked in, causing him to jump up and cling to the ceiling, and Nikola stopped humming the Vagrant Counting Song of Retrospection and, in his shock, discovered that he could rotate his head around at a 360-degree angle.

Sakura patiently waited as her friends regained their bearings before pointing to the tile on the floor. "I'm not sure how we missed it all these times, but there's something on the floor. Do you think it might a trapdoor or something?"

"But how would you open it?" asked Hobbes inquisitively. "I don't see a handle."

"Of course there's no handle!" Calvin told him. "It's a super high-tech secret evil lair! It's either triggered by a password, or it's hard-wired to only open when it's creator wills it! As a matter of fact, I'm going to stand on it to prove that we won't be able to open it!"

"Uh, Calvin?" Hobbes warned him as he went stand on the tile. "What if it isn't a trapdoor at all? What if it's actually a trap?"

Calvin stood up on the tile. "See?" he said. "Nothing's happenIIIIIIII-" He was abruptly cut off as the tile cleanly divided in two and swung on their hinges, causing him to drop down into whatever was on the floor below them.

Hobbes, Nikola, and Sakura leaned over the edge of the trapdoor tile to see that Calvin had landed face-down on the floor of the room about eight feet below. The room itself was of decent size, and the walls were lined with wires, computers, screens, and machinery, with one wall in particular piled high with computers of various sizes and functions. A board filled with buttons of varying shapes, sizes, and colors was attached to the right-hand side of the wall of computers.

Calvin lay sprawled out on the floor, dazed, but without any major injuries. The rather large cushion conveniently placed below the trapdoor probably had something to do with it.

"Wait." said Sakura. "Why is there a cushion in the hyper-advanced evil lair? And why did the trapdoor just open up and drop him down there? Wouldn't it just be easier to have a platform or something to safely move you up and down through the floors? Simply dropping someone down onto a giant cushion seems rather unsafe and clashes horribly"

"Perhaps it's a work in progress?" suggested Hobbes.

"We'll have time to figure everything out when we escape this place." Nikola told him, and jumped down the open trapdoor and onto the cushion that had been helpfully left on the ground. The impact of his landing nudged Calvin onto the ground, while also stirring him back to consciousness.

"Huh?" Calvin grumbled, his senses returning to him. "What?"

He was interrupted as Hobbes joined Calvin and Nikola, and jumped to the cushion beneath them, causing them to bounce a little. Sakura came in last, floating gently to the ground with her parasol.

"Wait, did she just...?" Hobbes trailed off in confusion as he watched Sakura float down with nothing but a parasol, completely defying the laws of physics in the process.

"It just works." Nikola informed him. "Don't question it."

Calvin, now snapped out of his daze, ran over to the many rows of computers that lined the walls, and began examining them with curiosity. "What do you suppose all these are for?" he asked.

The rest of the group walked over to the wall of screens. On some of them were multiple lines of codes that nobody in the group could really understand. On others were live feed of what must have been various parts of the secret lair.

"It seems that some of these are security cameras." Sakura noted. "And the ones that have a bunch of digital codes are probably something important, since we can't understand them. That way, we can't shut off any important parts of the place, like the lights, without taking a gamble."

"Either that, or they have no practical purpose and exist for the sole purpose of making the base seem fancier and more technologically advanced." Nikola added.

"In that case, I say we randomly hit buttons on the dashboard and see what happens!" Calvin said, advancing towards the wall of computers.

Everyone else, understandably, thought that was a horrible idea.

"Are you crazy?!" demanded Hobbes incredulously. "What if we turn of the lights? Or what if the bases' temperature suddenly hits freezing? Or what if you trigger the base's self-destruct sequence?!"

"It's probably programmed so that it doesn't respond to anyone but the person who owns this place." Sakura pointed out. "If it doesn't recognize their fingerprint, it might not work."

"Then it wouldn't hurt to hit everything, would it?" Calvin shot back.

"But we don't know what happens if it detects the wrong fingerprint." Sakura pressed on. "It might have a capture system, or alert all the robots in the base, or just release a toxic gas to kill us all!"

"I don't think we should let Calvin come within two feet of anything technological." Nikola noted. "Actually, scratch that. We should make it ten feet." Everyone else silently agreed.

"Come _on_!" Calvin whined. "Don't any of you _trust_ me?!"

Everyone in the room gave Calvin a most deadpan stare that told him that he was one of the least trustworthy people on the continent.

Calvin grumbled. "Well, guess what? It's a free country, and I'm hitting those buttons, whether you like it or not!" Before anyone could stop him, the spiky-haired lunatic turned around and randomly moved his hands across the keyboard, pressing any button in their path.

Suddenly, all the lights in the base turned off, and everything became so dark you couldn't even see your hand in front of you. The brightest thing in the room was Nikola's faintly glowing eyes.

"Um..." Calvin muttered awkwardly. "Oops?"

Hobbes clapped sarcastically in the murky darkness. "Wow. Smart move there, Einstein."

"See what I mean?" Nikola grumbled. "We can't trust him with any sort of important machinery!"

"I thought we were past this after the big argument we had back in the box." Sakura noted.

"Hey, it could be worse." Calvin said. "The base hasn't completely frozen over, we haven't been shot to death with lasers, the security systems haven't alerted every single robot in the base to our location..."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the room was illuminated by a flashing red light, punctuated by the blaring of a klaxon horn and a monotone computer voice announcing "WARNING: INTRUDERS DETECTED IN BASE. SENDING COORDINATES TO ALL ROBOTS. CAPTURE IS TOP PRIORITY." over and over again.

Hobbes, Nikola, and Sakura turned their glares upon the spiky-haired nincompoop who had just absolutely screwed them over.

"Eheheheh..." Calvin chuckled nervously. "Hey, at least the first two didn't happen, right?"

Hobbes and Nikola simultaneously clocked Calvin over the head for his act of extreme stupidity, while Sakura scanned the room for a possible escape route.

"Through here!" she said, motioning to a hallway opening on the wall opposite to the stack of computers.

"Wait." Hobbes said. "If that's the only exit, wouldn't the robots be able to corner us?"

"Do we have any better options?" asked Nikola.

"Not really..."

"Then let's go!"

The four of them, having no other options, took off into the hallway, desperately hoping the chaotic ride would end soon.

* * *

Meanwhile, in an unspecified part of the hidden lair, the figure of the man who had lied and claimed to be camp counselor Mr. Frank sat in front of a wall of screens, observing the quartet of nuisances barrel down the hallway. What had started as a lucky coincidence for him had quickly begun to turn into an irritating thorn in his side. It was a good thing he had decided in favor of putting a decoy control room in his base. If he hadn't, all his carefully laid-out plans would have been compromised. If he wasn't still trying to capture the loons, he would've sunk into a philosophical train of though about how one choice could change everything.

But now was not the time. His fingers flew over the keyboard in front of him, giving orders to his massive army of robots. A few seconds later, he facepalmed as he realized that A: He had mistyped the location they were supposed to go to, and B: He had sent too many at once, causing a sizable pile-up in multiple areas. He quickly ended the command, and, more carefully this time, made sure to send a much smaller group of robots to the hallway the four irritants were in.

He watched in satisfaction as his monitor showed a series of red dots marching forward towards the intruders. In a minute or so, he would send another group of robots to deal with them. But first, he would have to deal with the pileup of machines throughout the base. He dedicated the remaining robots to cleaning up the wreckage and taking them to the repair center.

Suddenly, a screen pinged, signifying that it had a notification for "Mr. Frank." His expression quickly changed into a mixture of horror and shock. That idiot Bill had somehow entered the base! And what's more, the large, dark object that had been trailing behind him in the forest was with him, too, and was knocking over the various machines in it's way as if they were little more than a sand castle in the wake of a wave!

The fake counselor grit his teeth and typed commands to the robots that weren't chasing after the quartet of buffoons. The cleanup would have to wait. This was a threat that had to be dealt with immediately.

In his hurry to deal with Mr. Bill and his mysterious, dangerous companion, he had completely forgotten about a certain other issue that he had been attending to beforehand...

* * *

Calvin, Hobbes, Nikola, and Sakura had been running down the halls for a couple minutes before they stopped to catch their breath. The adrenaline was beginning to run off, and the blaring alarm lights had stopped flashing.

"Hey, at least the alarm's stopped." Sakura observed.

"You think we shook 'em?" Hobbes panted.

Suddenly, a group of robots appeared around the corner. Everyone, startled, quickly began to scuttle backwards, which quickly turned out to be a mistake, as the robots noticed the intruders before them, and began to advance towards them.

Hobbes gulped. "Me and my big mouth."

"Let's get out of here!" Calvin said, and for once, everyone agreed with him. The four of them turned around, and began to run back down the hallway.

The robots, while having a moderately quick walk speed, were thankfully confined to that walk, leaving them unable to keep up with the gang's run. Unfortunately, they weren't the only robots sent after them.

Another group of robots appeared from around the corner. The robot at the front of the formation had some sort of odd device in place of a hand on it's right arm. It was ovular, reddish-orange in color, and had a circular opening that led to a dark tube. It raised it's arm, and the opening began to glow with a bright red light.

Suddenly, a burst of red energy shot out of the tube. Sakura instinctively drew her parasol. As soon as the red light hit the parasol, it bounced off of it, and hit the ceiling, where it exploded.

For a brief moment, Calvin, Hobbes, Nikola, Sakura, and the robots all paused, taking in the fact that a parasol had somehow managed to deflect a laser blast, and the fact that robots had laser blasts in the first place. The the robots continued to advance, and the one with the arm cannon resumed firing.

"Can this trip possibly get any worse?!" asked Calvin.

If he was in a less life-risking situation, Nikola would have whacked Calvin on the head for the second time since they entered the base. Instead, he had to be content with shouting, "You idiot! If you say something like that, it'll only get worse! You should know that after what happened the last time you said that!"

Sure enough, things did get worse. Another robot with an arm cannon joined the robots that had chased the group. As the first arm cannon robot continued it's attack, the new arm cannon robot raised it's arm and began to charge. Sakura looked from one robot to the other, unsure of what to do, while Calvin and Hobbes, huddled behind her parasol, were paralyzed in fear. No matter where Sakura turned her barrier, they would be blasted into dust by the robot.

Nikola's eyes went to his friends-Organic, living, fragile creatures that wouldn't last much longer if the blast so much as grazed their arm. Then he looked to the robots, with their lethal arm cannons and unrelenting efficiency. Then he looked at himself-A robot, with no blood to loose, so vital organs to rupture, no bones to break. If Calvin could somehow turn a cardboard box into an all-purpose machine that the potential to be literally anything, he could probably figure out where his memory was stored, salvage it, and put it in a new body of something.

Without any time to mull over his decision, he acted on instinct. Time seemed to slow down. Quickly, Nikola stood up and positioned himself in front of Sakura, Calvin, and Hobbes, so that the new robot's blast would have no way of hitting them. The malevolent red light in the robot's cannon shot out, hurling towards him at alarmingly high speed. Nikola only had time to put his arm in front of him before the blast hit him.

The horrible red light exploded in front of Nikola, and he fell down on the floor. Everything moved in slow motion. Half of his vision was filled with a web of cracks, and his sensors gave off a mild pain where he had been hit. At least the pain wasn't that bad. Perhaps the sensors had been damaged as well. Sakura, Calvin, and Hobbes looked at Nikola with a mixture of worry and shock, none of them able to speak.

Nikola tried to support himself with his left arm, but found that part of it had been blown off in the explosion. _'Well, it_ was _hit by a laser blast.'_ he thought to himself. _'And I'm made of plastic. Obviously, laser wins.'_ Looking down to his torso area, he found that part of the blast had also blown off a piece of his chest, and had damaged the battery pack stored there. Seeing as he needed that battery pack to run, that caused him a bit more alarm that the arm.

It was around then that he remembered that they were surrounded by robots from both sides, including ones that had arm cannons that shot blasts like the ones that had just wrecked him, and no matter what they did they would get hit by another blast, and he couldn't keep using himself as a shield much longer, and they were kinda sorta absolutely screwed.

However, the group didn't have any time to brace for impact, as a small, round, metal object fell to the ground between them. It was silver in color, with a soft teal glow emanating from a band that circled horizontally around the middle. Everyone in the room turned towards the small metal object a couple seconds before it opened up, and a shockwave rushed out from it.

The effect was immediate. The opposing robot's eyes dimmed, the deadly red light faded from their arms, and they bent at the waist slightly, deactivated. It was clear that the machines were no longer a threat.

Nikola, using his remaining arm, stood back up. The group looked around, trying to figure out what happened. Sakura, still somewhat wary, kept her parasol unfolded.

Suddenly, a voice resounded throughout the room. "Hello there!"

A pair of what looked like green, blobby squids, moving around on a set of six tentacles, appeared from behind the robots that Nikola had been facing. A single bulbous eye say in their round heads, upon which sat a long, conical hat, one with a star symbol, and another with a moon symbol.

"I presume everyone is still in salvageable condition, at least?" asked the one with the star symbol.

The blobbly squid-thing with the moon symbol on his hat examined Calvin, Hobbes, and Sakura, the turned to Nikola. He nodded. "The organic creatures have nothing more than scratches and bruises, and the robot can easily be repaired. They'll be fine. All friends of yours, Calvin?"

"What are... Who are..." Sakura trailed off, unable to decipher just what these bizarre creatures were, how they could talk, and why they apparently knew Calvin.

"What the heck...?" Nikola began, equally confused. "You know these guys, Calvin?"

Calvin finally found his voice. "Galaxoid and Nebular?!" he asked incredulously. "What are you two doing here?"

* * *

 **Author's Note: Yup, Galaxoid and Nebular. Bet most of you saw that one coming. If you didn't, then yay to me for making a plot twist, I guess. Anyways, as mentioned above, I should hopefully be able to get my schedule back in gear so I can get the next chapter to you quicker.**

 **On a side note, I bet a lot of you are worried about Nikola after what happened. Don't worry, he'll be fine. I'm not that kind of writer (Well, not yet, at least), and this isn't that kind of story. I also bet you were hoping for "Mr. Frank's" real name to be revealed. I was going to do that this chapter, but I was reaching the end of the second month and kinda had to rush it out. It'll all be revealed next chapter, I promise.**

 **See you next time in less than two months... I hope.**


	9. A Favor For Extraterrestrial Friends

**Author's Note: Oh hey, this chapter didn't take two months plus to finish this time. Nice.**

 **Anyways, I don't have that much to say compared to last time, but I still have some stuff to talk about. First off, remember when I said I was giving Calvin's parents names for the sake of the story in Chapter 2? Well, I'm actually using them now. In case you forgot (Which is fairly likely, given how little I've actually used them), it's Melissa for Mom and Tom for Dad.**

 **Secondly, the addition of Galaxoid and Nebular last chapter basically marked the beginning of the end for the story, and this chapter can be thought of the first of a three-part group of chapters that finish off the story, so there's that.**

 **Just as a heads up, I've made some minor tweaks to Galaxoid and Nebular to make them fit the role in the story I've planned out for them, partially due to a lot of this story being inspired by Garfieldodies' and Swing123's Calvinverse, which had Galaxoid and Nebular in a decidedly less morally ambiguous role. However, I'll still try and fit their comics portrayal into my fanon portrayal, so the change doesn't come off as too jarring.**

 **Thirdly, the next major release for me is Pokemon Sword and Shield, which, being an RPG, is going to take a while, so I should at least have a semi-reasonable excuse for any potential breaks from writing in the future. I would also encourage you to get the game, but given how big the series is, I don't think I need to.**

 **Lastly, more reviews and feedback would be highly appreciated. Now that I have finished my rambling, read away.**

* * *

It was now the sixth day of summer camp at Camp Scientist, formerly Camp Grizzly, and everything was in shambles. Two kids had disappeared in the same night, and the two major counselors had followed suit the following day. The event was all over the headlines, giving rise to rumors and worry, with some parents bringing their children home a couple days early.

All things considered, it was not Camp Scientist's best year.

Calvin's parents had stayed the night at camp, and had decided that they would continue to do so until their son was found. The addition of parents, and the parents of Calvin at that, coupled with the sudden disappearances, had drained most of the joy and energy from the camp, and most campers had been reduced to sitting around and gazing at the sky. It was fun outdoors activity time no longer.

Susie sighed. With Calvin gone, it felt like everything had become dull and boring. As much as she hated the guy sometimes, she had become used to expecting him to do something disruptive and stupid every other hour. Without him, she didn't feel the motivation to do anything but sit on a log. Even if she would never admit it later, she actually kinda missed the spiky-haired loon.

Calvin's parents weren't feeling much better. Both of them had been kept up at night by their shared worry for their son, and after Melissa exploded at her husband for bringing up his infamous character-building at a most inopportune time, Tom had been regretting what he had said. They had both silently agreed that they would buy him a new toy, or allow him to choose his dinners for a week (Even if it meant hamburgers every day for a week), or extended TV privilege, or _something_ , _anything_ to get their son to come back. It didn't matter that they wouldn't be able to live peacefully ever again. At that moment, they would trade anything for their son.

Even Moe missed Calvin. Actually, that's a lie. Moe didn't miss Calvin, he was just grumpy now that his favorite punching bag was gone. To make himself feel better, he tried to think of the various ways Calvin might hurt himself in the forest, but that just made him angrier because he wasn't there to see the embarrassment or pain first-hand.

What, did you really expect _Moe_ to have sympathy? Have you ever seen a hint of sympathy from the brute in the comics? No? Didn't think so.

*Ahem*

Anyways, sympathy or no sympathy, the entire camp couldn't help but wonder where Calvin and Sakura had went. Speaking of which...

* * *

Last we saw them, Calvin, Hobbes, Sakura, and Nikola were standing in a ring of deactivated robots after being saved by Calvin's and Hobbes' alien friends, Galaxoid and Nebular. Of course, Sakura and Nikola didn't know about the alien duo, so some shock and confusion was inevitable.

"Okay, what the heck is going on?!" Nikola demanded. "Everyone sees the aliens, right? Or are my systems damaged beyond repair and I'm suffering from the robot equivalent of hallucinations?!"

"No, we're real, all right." Galaxoid informed him. "And we can easily repair both your body and your systems."

"Why do you speak English?" Sakura butted in. "How does your biology work? When did you first come into contact with humans? What-"

"Calm down, calm down." Nebular told her. "We'll answer your questions at a less life-risking time."

"I do know they first met Calvin and I when Calvin was trying to complete a leaf collection assignment for school." Hobbes told them. "Calvin tried to sell them the Earth in exchange for them completing his assignment with leaves from their own planet."

"You tried to _sell_ the planet to them?!" Sakura asked Calvin, shocked.

"Hey, _I_ wasn't going to waste my life on that assignment!" Calvin shot back.

"We didn't take it all that seriously anyways." Galaxoid told him. "It helped that we had bumped into Hobbes the night before and were told to not take Calvin too seriously."

"You _WHAT_?!" Calvin shouted at Hobbes, who was already beginning to scoot away from the group. "Why you-Treason! You have committed treason to humanity, to G.R.O.S.S., and to all that is sacred!"

"As for the whole English-speaking thing," Nebular added, as Calvin chased after Hobbes with murderous intent. "It turns out English is the universal language, for some reason."

"Why English?" asked Nikola. "Why is an Earth language from an island country in Europe used universally?"

Nebular did a sort of shrugging motion with the spot where his tentacles met his head (Or at least, it looked like shrugging). "Our historians are still working on that one."

"You took quite a hit from that blast back there." Galaxoid observed. "We can repair you, if you'd like."

Nikola gave the alien a suspicious look. "Aren't we in the middle of an evil lair or something?" he asked.

Galaxoid reached under his hat and produced a capsule with what looked to be a glowing blue liquid. "We always bring a small amount of nanomachines with us a for emergencies." he told Nikola. "We can't make anything new out of it-They're still relatively new technology-But they can repair anything mechanical in seconds."

Nikola considered the offer. On one hand, easy repair. On the other, aliens that he had just met only minutes ago. He turned to Sakura. "Do you trust them?" he asked her.

"Well, they've met with Calvin before and they seem to be on good terms." Sakura said.

"That's the opposite of reassuring." Nikola muttered.

"We should probably learn why they're here." Sakura pointed out.

"You're right." Nikola then turned to the aliens and asked, "Why did you come down to Earth? And why are you down here?"

"And where's your home planet?" added Sakura.

"We are from Planet Khozos." Nebular informed them. "It is located in the same area of the Milky Way Galaxy as Earth, though it's still light-years away. We are part of the United Cosmic Alliance, a coalition of many interstellar civilizations. Our goal is to spread peace and advancement throughout the universe, while learning as much as we can about the cosmos that we live in."

"While Planet Khozos only joined recently, we have greatly benefited the Alliance." Galaxoid added. "We're part of a group called the Seekers-We search for new planets, and learn as much as possible about it while creating diplomatic ties to the inhabitants of the planet, if there are any sentient beings there in the first place. In our case, we've been assigned to Earth. "

"Since the people of Earth don't seem to be a very friendly bunch, and one without a ruling power for the entire planet at that, we've been paying Calvin and Hobbes the occasional visit for the latest news and to gather some information." Nebular explained, nonchalantly scooting out of the way to avoid Calvin and Hobbes' rolling mass of punching and kicking. "We were in the process of trying to locate a drone that had fallen in the forest by your camp when we were captured, brought to a prison cell, and had our equipment taken. Thankfully, we had hidden some EMPs in our hats, which allowed us to escape."

"Hmm..." The aliens seemed trustworthy enough, and Nikola didn't have any sort of nagging feeling in the back of his mind. He turned to Sakura again, and this time she nodded.

"I think I'll take the nanobots." he told Galaxoid.

"Okay then." the alien replied. "This should take just a minute." Carefully holding the capsule of nanomachines in one tentacle, he walked over to Nikola. "Should I just give you a small amount for this one repair, or do you want the whole thing for later potential incidents?"

"Excuse me?"

"If you have enough open space in your design, I can put the nanomachines in the gap and they'll alter the capsule so that it will stay inside you and repair any damage you take. They're also self-replicating when active, so unless you take a lot of damage at once and need more immediately for whatever reason, you won't need to replenish them."

"Sounds good to me."

"In that case, you'll need to open up any cabinets that you can so I can put them in. It's your body, so you should know better than anyone."

Nikola opened up his chest compartment, which was already partially blown open by the blast, and gestured to a spot in front of his battered battery pack. "I change batteries by my back, so they probably shouldn't get in the way."

Galaxoid carefully placed the capsule by the spot Nikola pointed to, and pressed a red button on the top. The capsule opened up, and the glowing blue machines flowed out, connecting to Nikola's internal structures. Galaxoid quickly drew his tentacle out of the way, as to not interfere with the process. Nikola watched as the blue glow expanded outwards, repairing all the damage the blast had done.

Suddenly, he cringed in pain. Evidently, his pain sensors had been repaired too. Thankfully, it was quickly fading. By now, he had been fully repaired. He examined the arm that had previously been blasted apart, flexing it lightly in various directions. The nanomachines had done their job, and his body felt like it had just been built.

"Wow." he muttered. "Thanks, Galaxoid."

"No problem." the alien replied.

"Hey, since you're trying to find your way out, how do you feel about joining us?" suggested Sakura. "It's always better to have more company."

"Also, you two seem far more reasonable than the idiot duo over there." Nikola noted, gesturing to Calvin and Hobbes, who had finally stopped fighting, and were now sprawled out on the ground, panting and gasping for breath.

"Well, we would," explained Nebular. "But we can't. Most of our gear was taken from us when we were captured, and the UCA has a strict policy against spreading our technology to non-UCA civilizations, as to avoid altering their development. If whoever's in charge of this base decides to use our tech for himself, or sell them, it might revolutionize humanity's technology, which may include their weaponry, and that may lead to war, and if we have to explain to you that war is bad, then humans are even dumber than our info suggests."

"Also, our gear is expensive, and currency doesn't grow on trees." Galaxoid added.

"After we reclaim our gear, then we get out." Nebular went on. "If you want to help us, we'd appreciate it."

Sakura's answer was immediate. "I'll help out." she said. "You saved us from the robots and patched up Nikola. It's the least we could do."

"Same here." Nikola agreed. "Besides, it would be much better to try to escape the evil lair with alien tech backing us up than without."

"I'd rather not be left in here by myself, thank you very much, so I'll go to." Hobbes added, having overheard the conversation while regaining his breath.

Calvin sighed. "I don't have much of a choice in the matter anyway." he grumbled. "Everyone else is going, so I'll go too."

"Then it's decided." Nebular drew a small handheld device from under his hat. "Some of our technology has tracking devices installed, so unless they've been sent to different locations, we should be able to follow the signal and reclaim our gear. We've also scanned a map of the base and have been using it to get around, so unless it was incorrect, we should be able to get to our gear fairly quickly. Thank you for helping us." he added earnestly. "I don't know how much you'll be able to fight against robots, but any help is appreciated."

"Alright, let's go!" declared Galaxoid, and with that, the team began to move in the direction the tracker was pointing in. All they had to do was reclaim the gear and follow the tracker to the exit, right?

* * *

"Mr. Frank" chuckled softly to himself. That soft chuckling gradually swelled, until it evolved into full-blown maniacal laughter. The idiots were falling right into his trap! When inspecting the various odd devices that had been found on the aliens, he had discovered an odd little handheld. After fiddling with it for a little while, he had deduced that the device was actually a tracker for the various devices.

Carefully planning ahead, he had left the tracker on the little alien squid-thingies, believing that if they escaped, they would head for their lost technology first, and he was right! After they had escaped their cell and regained their bearings, they had immediately started following their tracker to the room full of stolen gear-Or more specifically, the room directly under the room where "Mr. Frank" managed the various activities in his base. Not only that, but there were various traps placed between the room where the alien gadgets were stored. Either they would fall to the traps he had placed, or he would simply descend and sic his many robots that were stationed outside the room upon them.

Either way, he would get them back under lock and key, repurpose the alien technology for his own ends, and see what his sensors had picked up in those two kids. Whatever happened, he had already won.

His bout of maniacal laughter was abruptly cut off by the soft _ding_ of a monitor screen giving him a notification. Upon seeing what the screen deemed noteworthy, he slammed his palm into his forehead. It was Mr. Bill and his destructive mystery figure! How could he forget?! They would have to be dealt with immediately, or all could be lost!

No. He was exaggerating. He had lasers, traps, an army of robots, and forcefields. He would be absolutely fine. Right now, all he had to do was focus on the kids and the aliens...

* * *

It had been only about fifteen minutes, and the newly-formed group had been making great progress, mostly because A: They hadn't encountered any robots the whole time, and B: The tracker had helpfully pointed out numerous shortcuts, including one to an elevator.

"We're almost there now!" announced Galaxoid cheerfully. "All we have to do is get past the next couple rooms, grab our gear, and figure out the way to the exit!"

As he said that, he walked through a set of sliding doors and stopped abruptly. In front of him was a multitude of laser sensors. So much for almost there.

"...Well." said Nebular. "This is... Problematic."

"You don't say." Nikola muttered dryly. "Is there any alternative routes we could go through?"

Nebular shook his head. "The tracker shows that this in the only path to the room with the gear. We'll have to get rid of the sensors somehow."

"How are we supposed to do that?!" asked Calvin. "The lasers are EVERYWHERE!"

Nebular examined the room as Calvin continued to rant about something along the lines of the many injustices of the world and the unfairness of the lair. His concentration was broken by the irritating buzzing of a fly that had apparently lost it's way and found itself in the mysterious evil lair. He swatted at it with his tentacle, then repeated the action when he missed his mark. Upon noticing the swatting that was in progress, the fly flew away from the swinging tentacle, directly into the path of one of the laser detectors.

The effect was immediate. The room flashed red, and the laser detectors disappeared. Rows of gun-like weapons appeared from the walls, turned towards the fly, and began to shoot what appeared to be small metal spikes at the fly at an alarming rate. The fly buzzed around in terror, trying to avoid the shots, until one of the needle-thin spikes it it's mark. Their job complete, the spike launchers retreated back into their holding spots in the wall, the lasers returned, and the room returned to normal.

"...Well, at least we know what those sensors do." said Galaxoid, trying to keep the mood. Despite the many rounds of spikes that had been fired, the group had remained completely unharmed.

Calvin sank to his knees. "We're _doomed_." he moaned. "We'll never get out of here. We'll be forced to either cannibalize each other or starve to death. We'll go without sleep until our body shuts down because of the robots. We have no water and we'll die of dehydration in a couple days. _DOOMED_."

Sakura ignored Calvin's whining. Instead, she had pulled out a spike that had come fairly close to the spot they had been standing on and examined it. "Hobbes, could you come over here?" she asked. "I need one of you paws."

"Okay, but why?" asked Hobbes. "You're not going to do anything with that spike, are you?"

"I want to compare it with this spike." she said.

"Oo-kay?" Hobbes held his paw out, and Sakura held the thin metal spike up to one of his claws.

"It might be a bit of a tight fit, but I think your claws can fit in the holes the spikes left in the ceiling." she said.

"That's nice to know, but how's _that_ going to help?" Hobbes questioned.

"I think I understand." said Galaxoid, pointing to the center of the ceiling. "There's a path of holes left in the middle, and the lasers aren't pointing there. If you crouch down low, you should be able to squeeze past and deactivate the lasers."

"But how would I get up there?" asked Hobbes nervously. The prospect of getting riddled with hundreds of spikes was not a very appealing one. "And how would I turn off the lasers?"

"Well, there is a path leading to the wall over there." observed Nikola. "Don't know about the lasers, though."

"Just push the big red button labeled 'DEACTIVATE.'" said Galaxoid, pointing to a spot next to the doors. Sure enough, there was a large red button next to the doors, and it indeed have 'DEACTIVATE' written on it.

"Huh." said Nikola. "Well, that's convenient."

"We believe in you Hobbes." said Galaxoid. "All you have to do is climb up, jump to the ceiling, climb across that, jump down, and hit the deactivate button. Then we'll grab our stolen technology and escape!"

Hobbes still wasn't quite sold on the idea.

"Hobbes," said Nikola, "If you hit that button, we'll make sure Calvin gives you-Um..." He nudged Calvin.

"What do you want?!" the boy demanded. "Can't you see I'm busy complaining about our inevitable undignified demise?!"

"Calvin, we're trying to encourage Hobbes to do the thing that gets rid of the lasers and I don't know what motivates him."

"FISH!" Calvin shouted. "All tigers care about are fish! Seriously, haven't you done your research?!"

"We'll give you fish!" Nikola told Hobbes. "Lots and lots of fish! Salmon! Tuna! Swordfish! Heck, we'll even go out of our way to find exotic fish species, just for you! All you need to do is get past those lasers and push the big red button."

Hobbes closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. _'Fish. Lots of fish. All I need to do is get past the lasers and push the button, and I get lots of fish. Come on, Hobbes. You're a tiger, the greatest of all the big cats. You can do this.'_

Hobbes opened his eyes, crouched down, and leaped towards the left wall. Narrowly avoiding a laser, his claws slid neatly into the holes in the wall, anchoring him in place. Wasting no time, he crawled up the wall and realized that it would most likely be harder to jump from the wall to the ceiling.

He took another deep breath, steadied himself, and launched himself towards the ceiling. Flipping himself around in midair, he hooked on to the numerous holes in the roof-A tighter fit this time, seeing as some of the spikes were still lodged deep inside the metal-Making it harder to get a grip. Carefully moving forwards, Hobbes found multiple times that his claws would not fit in the holes, as they were filled by spikes. However, he still moved forwards, until he reached the end of the holes.

To his dismay, the path of holes ended a fair distance away from the door. If that wasn't problematic enough, the lasers formed an incredibly dense wall of light in front of the door. Hobbes attempted to steady himself. He had come this far already, and there wasn't any room to turn around. He had to make the jump.

Hobbes crouched down-It was more awkward than it sounds, due to being upside-down on a surface with a loose grip-And made the jump. Time seemed to slow down. He soared through the air and into the gap between the beams of light. Unfortunately, his tail brushed against one of the laser, but Hobbes was going to fast to notice, and the beams didn't feel like anything, anyways. The spike guns slid out of the wall and took aim. Everyone held their breath. Hobbes reached out his paw, and felt it come into contact with something solid.

A beep resounded throughout the room. The lasers disappeared, and the spike guns retracted. Everyone watching let out a resounding sigh of relief.

Hobbes looked up. He had done it. The lasers were gone and the rest of the group was walking over, including Calvin, who had apparently stopped complaining to watch Hobbes' attempt to deactivate the lasers. Carefully treading around the fallen spikes, they made their way over to the doors, which had opened automatically.

"It looks like we owe you some fish after this." said Nikola, as they walked through the doors and down a dimly-lit hallway.

"Does that mean we have to pay for it all too?" asked Sakura. "Because it would be unfortunate if we go broke feeding Hobbes."

"She has a point." Galaxoid agreed.

"Well, _I'm_ not paying for it!" Calvin said. "I didn't arrange this deal!"

Nikola groaned. "I should've thought of that."

"In his defense, nothing was specified other than the fish." Nebular pointed out. "We'll sort it all out when we get to the stolen tech, which, according to the tracker, should be-Ah!"

The hallway opened into a very large room, lit by dim lights all along the walls, plus some lightbulbs on the ceiling. It looked like it was about as wide as Calvin's house, but with out any walls in the way, which made it look even bigger. Stairways ran up and down the walls, and computer screens lined the walls. However, the entire room was uninhabited, aside from the group of six standing in the hallway. In the center of the room was a table, with various odd bits of alien gear strewn across the surface.

The group carefully walked over to the table, warily checking for potential traps. Well, everyone but Calvin, at least. The dingus took one look at the extraterrestrial gadgets, blurted out, "Cool!", and rushed over to the table.

"Calvin, wait!" Nebular called after him. "There could be traps or robots waiting for us!"

Calvin didn't listen. He just ran right up to the table. "C'mon, it's safe here! Nothing to worry about!"

Everyone froze at that, remembering what had happened the last time Calvin had said that. When nothing happened after a couple seconds, they decided that the area was indeed safe, and joined Calvin at the table.

Galaxoid produced a small cube from underneath his hat, and put it on the ground. Instantly, it expanded to many times it's size. Galaxoid opened it, and he and Nebular began carefully placing their gear into it.

"Hey!" exclaimed Calvin. "When did you get size-changing technology?! I was supposed to invent it!"

"Interplanetary convergent technological evolution." Nebular said. "It happens from time to time. You can still be the one to patent it on Earth."

"Excuse me?" asked Hobbes. "What?"

"It's when the technologies of different planets end up being incredibly similar, despite the lack of influence from other planets." Galaxoid explained. "Like how a lot of alien spaceships end up looking similar and having similar components."

"Oooh, so _that's_ why all the aliens we hear abduction reports about are flying saucers!" Hobbes said.

"Correct!" said Nebular, who was packing the last of the gadgets into the box. "Well, except for the abductions. That never happened."

Suddenly, the lights dimmed, and the sound of doors sliding open resounded throughout the room. In seconds, the table was surrounded by row upon row of robot. A faint, wobbly, futuristic noise accompanied the descent of some sort of hovering chair, floating down from one of the rows of stairs above. The chair faced away from the group, so they couldn't see who was sitting in it.

"Well, well, well." The man seated in the chair sneered, a deep baritone voice with a slight German accent. "Look who just fell right into my trap."

"Would it have hurt to come up with something a little less cliché?" asked Nikola. "Because that's got to be one of the top ten most overused villain lines ever."

"SILENCE!" shouted the man, banging his fist on the armrest of his chair. "You will regret those words."

"Also overused villain lines." Nikola responded.

"He's right." Calvin interjected. "I've probably heard those used by just about every Captain Napalm villain ever at least once. Well, except Skullcrusher the Brutal Warlord. That issue was actually really dark."

"SHUT UP!" the mysterious man shouted, his intimidation factor beginning to slip away. "All of you, shut up! You are surrounded, and I can have my robots blast you into smithereens at any moment! All I need to do is give them the command, and you'll be a pile of ash on the ground!"

The man in the chair paused. "But I won't do that. You're all far too important for that. The tech, the robot's programming, whatever my sensors have detected within that girl... And most importantly, you, _Calvin_."

The chair swiveled around, revealing a face that made everyone gasp.

"Mr. Frank?!" asked Sakura, bewildered. "What are you doing here?"

"That name was made up." The man who once claimed to be Mr. Frank said. "A lie, as to not raise suspicion. But now that we're all alone together, there's no need for disguises. With that in mind, you may call me..."

" _Doctor Madman_."

* * *

 **Author's Note: And the name is revealed! And yes, the rather on-the-nose name is inspired by Garfieldodie's and Swing123's Calvinverse villains, like Doctor Brainstorm. Anyways, he may have seemed fairly intimidating here, but don't expect it to last very long. It wasn't my intent to make him come across as so intimidating, but I ended up going down that path. Don't worry, though, I have an idea that should be able to rectify this issue. That is, of course, assuming I don't take another two months to get the next chapter out...**

 **Anyways, see you whenever that next chapter comes out! It's going to be a fun one, all right...**


	10. The Mastermind Revealed

**Author's Note: I'm back, and I only exceeded the one-month deadline by a couple days. Nice.**

 **There's quite a bit I'd like to say first. This chapter was going to be the final battle, but I ended up changing it to some backstory and exposition. This is because I actually come up with the story as I go, with somewhat vague ideas put in place to guide the story. Nikola, Sakura, the newly-revealed Doctor Madman, the evil lair, and the general story were planned from the beginning, but I created details as I went and ended up drawing out the story a fair bit.**

 **I ended up wanting to add a bit of backstory and reasoning for Doctor Madman, and in the process, I created entirely new concepts that turned this chapter into the backstory chapter, which also ended up being the longest chapter I've ever written so far, so hooray for new records, I suppose.**

 **It might get a bit intense, but don't worry, it would get to extreme levels of edge. I'm not that kind of writer. Also, the climactic final showdown will be next chapter, and I'm gonna go all-out there, so please look forward to that. Also, more reviews and feedback would be nice.**

 **Now that everything's out of the way, enjoy.**

* * *

A silence had fallen over the room as Mr. Frank-Sorry, Doctor Madman-Let the impact of his words sink in. He could barely stop himself from grinning like a loon at the very prospect of the fear and respect his new soon-to-be would regard him with. The fear and respect he _deserved_.

When Nikola broke the silence, it was most definitely _not_ with fear or respect.

"'Doctor Madman?'" he asked. "Really? Did you suffer from writer's block and go to a generic supervillain name generator?"

"How _dare_ you?!" Doctor Madman hissed. "It is a glorious family name that has been around for _generations!_ " On that last word, the deep, menacing baritone gave way to a higher-pitched, decidedly less intimidating voice.

"Did his voice just crack?" asked Calvin.

"Yeah, it did." confirmed Hobbes. "That's not something you see in the comics, do you?"

"Well, the comics are just text and drawings on pages." Sakura pointed out. "We wouldn't know if their voice cracks or not, and all the heroes are either too polite or too serious to point it out."

"But Surreal Man points out whenever The Rat's voice cracks, and he's fought LOADS of enemies." Calvin noted. "If every supervillain suffered a voice crack, we'd know."

"Maybe we just got stuck with a really bad supervillain who got lucky and blindsided us." suggested Galaxoid. "We've dealt with those before."

While the group was discussing supervillains and voice cracks, Doctor Madman's face had turned bright red, smoke billowing out of his ears. "SHUT UP!" he bellowed, still using the same higher-pitched, unintimidating voice. "My voice did not crack, and it is very intimidating! I bought an Intimidation-Booster™ to insure..."

Madman trailed off as the realization dawned on him. Checking the device attached to his collar, he cursed upon realizing the gadget he used to make his voice more menacing had run out of battery.

The group watched on in silence as four chapters worth of dramatic build-up vanished in the blink of an eye.

"Hey," Calvin began. "Are you going to divulge your backstory to us or something? Because this is usually when the villains explain their motivations in extreme detail."

Doctor Madman ripped off the useless device on his collar and chucked it away. He then turned around and cleared his throat.

"So." he began, trying his best to sound dramatic without the voice enhancer. "You want my backstory, do you?"

"I mean, we literally just asked if you were going to infodump us-" Nikola began.

"DO NOT INTERRUPT MY BACKSTORY INFODUMP!" Doctor Madman shouted. "Anyways..."

"I was born into House Madman, a family of supervillains that was once held in high esteem, but has fell into obscurity a couple hundred years ago. That's also around when we stopped using the house suffix." he added. "It was a holdover from earlier years and we were too powerful for anyone to tell us we were using archaic terms. We're just the Madman family now. Moving on.

All of our family has become a villain of some sort, and I wanted to follow in their footsteps. As a result, I got a good education, went to a good supervillain university, and got some funding from the Root of Evil foundation, a group that fund up-and-coming supervillains like me. I then began to plan out my course of action for my villainous debut.

And that's why I decided to become a supervillain with an evil fortress." he finished.

A pause fell over the group. "That's it?" asked Nikola. "You just wanted to be the bad guy, so you did?"

"More or less."

"Huh." Hobbes said. "Most of the villains in the comic I, uh, _borrowed_ , from Calvin usually had a deeper backstory than that."

"Yeah." agreed Calvin. "Even the guys without much depth had a pretty cool backstory that gives them their powers. You just decided, 'I want to be a supervillain, so I will be the supervillain.' It's not really compelling."

"Comics had to be dramatized to entertain the masses." Doctor Madman brushed him off. "Most of the bad guys in real life were inspired by past bad guys."

"Huh." Nebular observed. "It appears that Earth has a supervillain community. Are you writing this down, Galaxoid?"

"Yes, this is very valuable information for our report!" Galaxoid replied.

"Wait, other planets have supervillains too?" asked Calvin.

"Indeed, they do!" Galaxoid informed him. "One of the main actions of the UCA is to monitor the growth of a planet's supervillain community, and to prevent it from coming into contact with other intergalactic crime groups."

"Unfortunately, that has happened quite a bit since the Interstellar Revolutions." Nebular added. "The most recent of such unions is the Intergalactic Supervillain Alliance, or the IGSVA. Thankfully, we've been making great progress in reining them in as of late."

"Thank you for the lesson in current interstellar events." said Doctor Madman. "I will make good use of them once I have dealt with you. Speaking of which..."

The robots began to close in on the group, forcing them to squeeze into an ever-tighter clump.

"What do we do, what do we do..." said Hobbes in a small voice, fear and panic beginning to take the wheel.

"Don't worry." said Calvin confidently. "I've got a plan."

"How very, _very_ reassuring." Nikola muttered. "Chances are you'll screw us all over for the umpteenth time this week. Whatever you're planning, I don't see it working out."

Calvin, grinning widely, reached into his hair, and produced a small plastic bottle from it.

Doctor Madman stopped, as did the robots. "What the-?" he questioned incredulously. "How did you fit that in there?"

Everyone in the group also turned to stare. "How did you do that?" asked Nebular. "Our studies don't indicate humans having a hollow pouch on their head for storage. There's no possible way that thing could fit in your hair for the entire time!"

Calvin furiously shook the bottle in his hand, causing it to froth and bubble, before throwing the bottle as hard as he could. The bottle flew through the air, above Doctor Madman's head-How he managed to throw it that high and far, I do not know-And landed behind him, in the crowd of robots behind him.

As soon as the bottle hit the ground, it exploded, flinging white, bubbly spray everywhere. Robots caught in the blast were either blown to bits or sent flying, usually both. The other robots attempted to dodge the blast, but usually either ran into each other or were hit by flying pieces of destroyed robots.

"WHAT THE HECK?!" shouted Doctor Madman, flinging his arms into the air. "WHAT?! HOW?! WHY?!"

As Calvin threw explosive bottles at the robots, the group were registering the horrifying realization that Calvin had access to a highly destructive weapon.

"This is bad." muttered Nikola. "This is very bad."

He stood there, with his hands put to his head. Sakura had extended her parasol and crouched down as low as she could. Galaxoid and Nebular had activated some sort of alien forcefield and were hiding behind it. Hobbes had somehow managed to scramble up the wall and onto the ceiling, where he hang on for his life.

As Doctor Madman's army of robots fell to pieces, Calvin had emptied his entire supply of explosive water bottles onto the ground. "Here." he told the group. "Take some."

Sakura peeked out from under her parasol umbrella. "What are those?" she asked. "How did you get them?"

"Homemade Bottle Bombs!" Calvin explained proudly. "I made them myself. Just shake 'em and throw 'em wherever you want! Just be sure not to drop them, though, unless you want to explode yourself."

Galaxoid tentatively picked up a Bottle Bomb. "How did you make these?" he asked.

"I'll explain that later, when we aren't fighting for our life." Calvin told him, grabbing another bomb. "I have a couple other inventions in my backpack, but most of them are a work in progress. Speaking of which, where is that bag?"

"I think Hobbes has it." Sakura pointed to the ceiling, where Hobbes clung to. Indeed, the backpack was still slung over Hobbes' shoulders.

"Hey, Hobbes!" called Calvin. "If you're going to be a sissy and cling to the ceiling the whole time, could you at least give us my backpack? There's some important stuff in there we'll need, because those Bottle Bombs aren't infinite!"

True enough, the supply of Bottle Bombs was beginning to dry up. Hobbes, not wanting to get caught up in Calvin's stupidity any more than he already was, unbuckled the backpack, where it dropped down in the middle of the group. Calvin ran over to the backpack, unzipped it, and began rooting through it for his desired inventions.

A burst of red energy whizzed by his head. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a robot with an arm cannon advancing on him, flanked by a pair of bulkier, heavily-armored robots. Calvin frantically tried to find something useful, but it was too late. Another blast was already charging up. Calvin was toast.

At least, he would've been if it weren't for Nikola. The robot jumped in the way of the blast before it could hit Calvin, shielding him from harm. As the smoke cleared, it became apparent that Nikola had taken much less damage than before, and whatever damage had been taken was quickly repaired by the nanomachines.

"Th-thanks." Calvin barely managed to make out a thank you through his shock.

"Don't think much about it." Nikola told him. "If you died, my conscience would never be clean again."

Nikola then turned around to face the arm cannon robot and punched it. Apparently, the impact of his fist against the enemy robot's face was enough to trigger the nanobot's protection programming, because his blow strengthened by the tiny machines.

The robot clattered into one of the bulkier machines. As the two tried to recover, Nikola began to square off with the second bulky robot. Calvin took the opportunity to drag his backpack to a spot by the wall before continuing his search for something useful. His silent plea to the bag was answered when he pulled out his hand and found a baseball bat on the other side.

Grabbing hold of the bat, he turned around and let out a sort of war cry, which probably wasn't as intimidating as he thought it was, but he gets points for volume, at least.

Perhaps too many points. Just about every robot in the room turned around to look at the source of the noise.

"Um..." Calvin said sheepishly. "I don't know where that sound came from?"

A volley of energy blasts answered him. Thankfully, Sakura was able to leap in the way in time to block the vast majority of the blasts with her parasol. Nikola, who had apparently finished up with the robots he was dealing with, joined her, followed by a small, flat, circular device, which fell on the floor in front of them. It quickly expanded into a blue energy barrier, made up of a mass of hexagons in a beehive pattern. Calvin, Sakura, and Nikola quickly ran away while the robots continued to focus their attention on the barrier, unable to see the trio escape through the smoke.

The trio regrouped with Galaxoid and Nebular under the table where Doctor Madman had put the stolen alien technology. "What do we do now?" asked Sakura. "There's no way we can deal with them all!"

"I know for a fact that human technology is at Level III, bordering on Level IV." Nebular explained.

"Come again?" asked Nikola.

"That is, your technology isn't that high on the UCA's official Technology Advancement Rating." Nebular explained. "No offence to any Earthlings present."

"None taken." Calvin told him. "The engineers are to blame for not making flying cars yet."

"Anyways, my point is there's no way robots of this level of technology could have been created on Earth." Galaxoid told him. "Not without it getting out and becoming widespread."

"Then where do I come in?" asked Nikola.

"That's a very good question!" The table lifted up to reveal Doctor Madman, grinning wildly. He sat in his floating chair, which had attached some sort of metal box to it's bottom. Eight mechanical claws extended from the box, two being used to lift the table, and a plexiglass dome encircled the chair, protecting the mad doctor from harm. Four robots floated above him, propelled by jetpacks built into their back. "Unfortunately, we don't have enough time for that right now. Or, more specifically, _you_ don't have enough time left to _live!_ "

He grabbed the group with his free claws, lifting them up to his eye level. "But before we can do that," he began. "We must finish my unfinished exposition. You see, I couldn't just whip up this base from nowhere, not without funding. In fact, lack of funding has taken out far more supervillains than any crime-fighter ever has. I was almost one of those victims until I met a certain Dr. Matthew Mind."

"Dr. Mind is a brilliant, renowned supervillain psychologist, known for his studies of trying to weaponize imagination-After all, we're the bad guys. We need to find a way to weaponize everything, you know. Anyways, his most recent assistant had been, ah... Well, he was involved in a little _accident_ (And by accident, we mean put into a coma he still hasn't woken up from), and Dr. Mind needed someone else to help out with his studies. You see, the Madman family is proud to be one of the few supervillain families to consistently reach the Top 10 Lowest Sanity Charts that are taken every year-"

"You know, every time I learn something new about the supervillain community, they just sound dumber and dumber." Nikola noted from his position in Dr. Madman's claw. "Stupid names, stupid charts, stupid-"

" **DO NOT INTERRUPT ME WHILE I GIVE MY DRAMATIC BACKSTORY SPEECH!** " Doctor Madman roared, his voice magnified by a microphone device in his chair. Nikola instantly shut up.

"Anyways. The honor of the Madman family was on my shoulders, and besides, who _wouldn't_ want to meet a famous evil scientist? Of course I accepted! For better or worse, it wasn't life-risking, though. Well, not for me, at least. You see, Dr. Mind believed that children inherently had massive reserves or imagination, which tended to decrease as they got older. He thought that if we could get a child into his Imagination Weaponizer, he could provide the power and weaponry to cause a supervillain uprising!"

"You have an Imagination Weaponizer?" Nebular asked. "I'm beginning to reconsider humanity's placement on the Technology Advancement Rating."

"Hmm?" Doctor Madman turned to the alien. "Oh, I never did explain the Imagination Weaponizer, did I? It's Dr. Mind's most well-known creation-A device that takes the imagination of a person and turns it into power, weapons, and the like. At least, that's what it _should_ do. Unfortunately, most of the victims-Erm, _willing volunteers_ -Only produced enough energy to power a medium-size house for a day, and no ideas were brought into reality. However, Dr. Mind claims that the reason behind the lack of creation was the fact that there was no creativity-The imagination donors were either young adults or middle-aged individuals, all of which were employed in low-quality, soul-sucking jobs at retail stores, fast food chains, and offices, which drained their creative spark.

In response to this, Dr. Mind developed a different strategy: Get the imagination from a child, young, fresh, and without awful occupations. He proposed to me that I should buy out a summer camp under the guise of a wealthy donor, take the most imaginative child there, and use their creativity to bring ideas into life. And that's just what I did. I created the fake billionaire disguise, Frank M. A. D. Man, and bought a randomly-selected summer camp, which just so happened to be Camp Grizzly-Or Camp Scientist, as it's called now. I then interacted with the campers there, in search of someone with the imagination Dr. Mind's project called for. And that's when I found _you_."

He pointed a finger towards Calvin, who spent a second looking around before realizing that the spotlight was on him. "Me?" he asked. "Why would you need little ol' me for your master plan?"

Doctor Madman grinned a sick, gleeful grin. "Ever since I met you, I realized that you had massive, perhaps limitless, amounts of pure, unadulterated creativity, ripe for the taking. You were _perfect_ for Dr. Mind's experiment."

Calvin gulped nervously. "You said 'were.' That's they keyword, right? Because then I wouldn't be good for the project, right?"

"No, no, you're still ideal." Doctor Madman sneered maliciously. "And if you don't believe me, I can prove it for you."

With the press of a button, a holographic keyboard appeared in front of him. His fingers swiftly flew over the keyboard, sending commands to his base. A trapdoor opened up on the ceiling, and a pair of flying robots gently floated down from the opening, carrying the Imagination Weaponizer.

It was a fairly large, bulky, cubical device, about twice as big as Calvin's cardboard box. One side was covered by a dashboard, screen, and various blinking lights, and the side that faced Calvin had a seat attached to it, with a large, bowl-like structure hanging from a curled wire on the top of the machine. Many, many cables extended from the back of the device, which more robots quickly attached to other cables, cords, connectors, and splitters.

When the robots had finished setting everything up, Doctor Madman placed a squirming Calvin into the seat and put the bowl-shaped device on his head. "You can't get away with this!" the boy shouted. "My dad's a lawyer! As soon as word gets out, we'll sue you for all you're worth!"

As robots began setting up the device, Doctor Madman laughed a sick, twisted laugh. "I wouldn't bet on that." he sneered. "When I have proven my worth as a villain, I'll have connections. Word won't get out, and even if it does, I can easily rig anything that gets thrown at me. NOW SHUT UP AND GIVE YOUR IMAGINATION TO ME!"

Doctor Madman's sudden outburst left Calvin too stunned to fight back as the robots finished the setup. The Imagination Weaponizer lit up and roared to life. A bar on the side of the dashboard began filling up, and the coiling wire connecting the bowl to Calvin's head began to spark with a wide multitude of colors. The cables from the back carried the brilliant swirling lights away to the rest of the base, until the entire room was alight with color.

Calvin winced. "I'm getting a bit of a headache." he muttered. "It's getting a bit worse, and I'm getting a kinda dizzy, and OW!" The pain suddenly shot up, and Calvin screamed out in pain. The blinking lights began glowing intensely, and the bar of the dashboard was entirely filled now. Doctor Madman watched the screen, now swirling with colors, a grin splitting his face. The rest of the group could only watch in horror, unable to help.

"You've crossed a line." Nebular told the psychotic doctor coldly, struggling against the claw that held him. "We'll bring down the UCA's forces upon you. You will not be allowed to get away with this."

You don't get it, do you?" Doctor Madman laughed over Calvin's screams. Doors opened throughout the room, and robots of various shapes, sizes, and weaponry began to flood into the room, their lights glowing with the swirling colors of Calvin's imagination energy. "I already have. The boy's imagination is generating an infinite supply of robots for me, Dr. Mind's theory has proven to be successful, I have a wonderful power source to power my base, and perhaps every supervillain base there is, and I have all of you captured. Face it. I've won."

"You don't have all of us, though." Sakura told him. "You don't have Hobbes."

Doctor Madman looked at Sakura, then the rest of his prisoners, and then surveyed the entire room. "What are you talking about?" he asked her. "You all hid under the table, and I caught you there! I should have all of-Say, is that the roar of a big cat...?" Doctor Madman looked in the direction of the noise, about a millisecond before Hobbes slammed into him.

Now, where was Hobbes this whole time? I suppose I should explain that.

You see, Hobbes had been clinging to the ceiling ever since he'd bolted, watching the rest of the group fend off the robot army. His survival instincts forbid him from getting involved with the endless sea of machines, but seeing his friends take a stand was beginning to give him second thoughts. However, the rational part of his brain still told him that he was no match for the robots, especially when he saw the group get captured, and so he still held on, despite the fact that his claws were aching from fatigue and from cramming themselves into the hard metal.

He could only watch as Doctor Madman brought out a large, boxy machine, and did something with it, though Hobbes' view was obscured, and he couldn't hear what he was saying, either. Suddenly, he heard Calvin scream.

Instantly, the sane, rational voice was gone, and with a primal roar, Hobbes threw himself towards Doctor Madman. Nobody was going to hurt his friend. _Nobody_.

Hobbes blasted through the robots in his way and slammed into the plexiglass dome of Doctor Madman's machine, causing him to drop Nikola, Sakura, Galaxoid, and Nebular. Cracks appeared where his claws landed, and the odd vehicle was knocked around. In his panic, Doctor Madman flailed his arms around, causing him to hit the keys on the holographic keyboard, sending random commands to the base. The Imagination Weaponizer shut off, and Calvin's screams stopped as well. The multitude of robots all looked around, as if waking up, and the swirling array of colors that lit up the room faded out, leaving the only source of light the lightbulbs placed through out the room.

Galaxoid was the first to get up. Wasting no time, he ran over to Calvin and helped him out of his chair. The rest of the group, sans Hobbes, who was still savagely clawing with Doctor Madman, joined them. Calvin groaned. "Ow..."

Nebular reached under his hat and drew a small tube from it. He flipped off the lid and squeezed it, causing a light green paste to fall onto Calvin's head. Nebular rubbed the paste, which quickly faded into the boy's head. Suddenly, the pain receded, and Calvin felt a rush of energy. He leaped onto his feet and looked around. "What was that?" he asked the alien. "I feel as good as if I was given unlimited access to the cookie jar!"

"A special Mental Repair Paste from the planet Sykey." the alien explained. "You were having your imagination drained from you, so I figured this would help."

"Well, it certainly did!" Calvin told him. "I feel fresh and energized and-Wait, where's Hobbes?"

Nikola jabbed a thumb at Hobbes, who was now clawing off one of the mechanical arms of Doctor Madman's chair-vehicle thing. "He somehow managed to hang onto the ceiling the whole time we were fighting, so he wasn't caught with the rest of us. When he heard your screams, something happened to him, and he tackled Dr. Very-Much-Not-Sane over there. We were dropped, and the mad doctor accidentally sent the command to turn off the Imagination Weaponizer-thingy. I'd say he's more than earned that fish we promised him."

By then, Doctor Madman had managed to get a hold of the snarling tiger with the one robot arm that hadn't been damaged in some way, and threw him away. He fell to the ground, quickly rolled to right himself, and took a brief moment to catch his breath. It was around then that he noticed Calvin. The wild look in his eyes fading, he said, "Calvin! You're okay!"

"Depends." Nikola told him. "Would you consider extremely hyped up okay?"

It was true. Calvin was hopping in place, pacing in a small circle, and almost shaking with energy.

"Perhaps we applied too much Mental Repair Paste." Galaxoid observed.

"Excuse me, but _what_ paste?" asked Hobbes worriedly. "What happened back there?"

"We'll explain later." Nebular told him. "Right now, we need to deal with the robots and get out of here."

Doctor Madman was madly typing commands to the robot army, attempting to rectify the previous series of accidental orders, many of which were conflicting. A wild, furious glint was in his eye. The Imagination Weaponizer had been shut down, and thanks to his accidental pressing of buttons and his setup of his interface, he had accidentally deleted the robot army's singular mind, leaving them to be controlled by their own AI. Unable to function with the same controlling force, they would only be able to carry out simple commands, unless he sent the orders directly to them, and with the sudden growth in units, that would be impossible. However, the only command he needed to send was as simple as could be.

"GET THEM!" he shrieked, slamming his fist into the button. "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU DO, KNOCK THEM OUT AND LOCK THEM UP!"

Even though the robots reacted much more slowly without a single guiding voice, they were still beginning to regroup. Thinking quickly, Nebular developed a plan. "I have a plan, we'll have to act quickly." he told the group. "Calvin, your baseball bat is only a short distance away." He pointed to a corner of the room only a few feet away, where the bat had rolled. "You and Hobbes are to run over there, grab the bat, and fight off the robots until there's a clear path to Calvin's backpack and our stolen technology."

"Fight them?!" asked Hobbes incredulously. "Are you crazy?!"

"You just did it a minute ago." Nebular pointed out, gesturing towards the crumpled scram metal on the floor that had been robots before Hobbes had struck them. "Just remember that what almost happened to Calvin before will happen for real if you don't fight them. Besides, you'll have Calvin and his bat to help you."

Hobbes gulped loudly. "That's the opposite of reassuring." he muttered. Still, he readied himself for the oncoming brawl.

"Alright, let's go!" Calvin shouted, barreling towards the bat.

"Calvin! Wait!" Hobbes had no choice but to follow after the spiky-haired boy.

Nebular sighed, then turned to Sakura and Nikola. "As for your job, I need you to protect us, seeing as Nikola's nanomachines and Sakura's parasol are the most durable tools we have on hand. While Calvin and Hobbes open up a path, Galaxoid and I will run over to the bags with our tech. Once we take back the gadgets, we'll find a way to regroup and use the technology to our advantage. Got it?"

Nikola nodded. "I've got your backs. Are you up for this, Sakura?"

Sakura nodded back and opened her parasol. "I'm on it."

By now, the robots had fully regrouped, and were marching towards the group while Doctor Madman screamed curses and threats from his cracked, beaten chair. Calvin and Hobbes' initial assault had already cleared out quite a few of the bots, and they were beginning to make their way to the bags. The swirling lights were dimming and giving way to the standard red, but more robots were marching out of the doors and into the room. The mass of machines between the quartet and the bags of technology was growing thicker. It was now or never.

Nebular took in a breath to steady himself, and said, "Begin."

The four charged forwards, and the fight was on.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Well. That was quite a bit of information, so I hope you didn't mind reading all that. I also changed ideas a couple time while writing this, as mentioned above, but I had already gotten the text down and I was beginning to exceed my one-month deadline, so that's why it might feel like the story abruptly shift at certain parts. I hope you don't mind that either.**

 **Lastly, I hope you'll enjoy the climactic final battle next chapter, and feedback and comments would be greatly appreciated, please and thank you. See you when that next chapter comes out!**


	11. Control Room Chaos

**Author's Note: Well guys, this is it. The climactic final battle, and, clocking in at 8,465 words, the longest chapter i have ever written up to this point.**

 **Before we start, though, I would like to thank everyone who's been reading this, whether they just started or have been with me from start to finish, whether you just found out about me today or knew me from that one earlier fanfic I wrote and declared non-canon, and those who stuck with me through my constant hiatuses or dropped the fic and picked up later. I also thank the helpful commenters and reviewers, who's feedback is greatly appreciated and will be kept in mind in my future stories, as will any future feedback.**

 **I also feel that it would be best to wish everyone a belated merry Christmas/happy holidays, and a happy New Year, even though it's been a week or two since those happened.**

 **Welp, not much left to say anymore. In that case, on with the show!**

* * *

Mr. Bill walked through the dark halls of... Well, wherever he was. It had been a good while since he had gone off in search of Calvin and Sakura, and while he had feared the worst, he certainly didn't expect to find a stairway descending into the forest floor. He went to check if the kids were in there, but he didn't realize how just long the search would take.

He also didn't consider the possibility that there would be multiple groups of robots. Thankfully, he had brought help with him, which lumbered along behind him, big, dark, and covered in fur. Behind it was a trail of scrap metal that had once been hostile robots. More were carried in it's massive arms, which it laid behind it every couple of feet, as to not get lost in the winding corridors.

After a while of walking, they duo discovered a screen in the wall. On it was a map of what had to be the underground lair they were in, with a cluster of red dots in the center. Four blue dots and one yellow dot accompanied them. Another pair of blue dots sat a couple rooms away. Mr. Bill realized that those dots had to be them and his friend.

Suddenly, the lights turned off, as did the screen. A couple seconds later, the lights came back on, significantly brighter than before. The red cluster of dots on the screen had grown exponentially.

Mr. Bill turned to his companion, and asked, "What do you suppose that meant?"

His helper responded with a wordless look that Mr. Bill understood instantly, though he didn't quite believe it. "What do you mean, Calvin and Sakura are in there?"

Another look and a grunt. Mr. Bill nodded. "Well, it's worth a shot. We've been down here for too long. Let's see what's going on."

The pair checked the map again, then began moving down the hallways, towards the red cluster in the center of the lair.

* * *

In the center of Doctor Madman's lair, everything had turned into chaos. Calvin and Hobbes smashed their way through the robots, leaving an empty path in their wake. However, the robots kept coming, rapidly filling the gap and forcing Galaxoid and Nebular to squeeze together as close as possible to get through. Sakura and Nikola's presence didn't make the situation any less crowded, but it was preferable to getting blasted to bits by the mass of machines.

Calvin swung his bat wildly, taking the heads off of any robots unfortunate enough to be in his range-And almost doing the same to Hobbes, who ducked just in time.

"HEY!" he shouted over the din of the fight. "Watch where you swing that thing!"

"It's not _my_ fault there's robots everywhere!" Calvin shouted back. He brought down the bat behind him, crushing another robot in the process. "I can barely see a thing over the dang things!"

"Yeah, well-" Whatever Hobbes' point was supposed to be was cut off when a particularly large robot slugged him in the back of the head, sending him sprawling onto the ground. Calvin jumped back, crashing into the robots advancing upon him and sending them tumbling to the floor, dragging the robots behind _them_ with them as well.

As the robots behind Calvin toppled over like dominoes, Hobbes turned around, rubbing his head. Dodging a second punch, he quickly got to his feet and leaped back. With enough space now available, he crouched to the ground, dodging another punch that caused his adversary to loose it's balance. As it stumbled, Hobbes shot of the ground, slamming into the bulky bot with about the same force as a runaway freight train (According to the estimates of Calvin, based on the many assaults he had regularly received after opening many a safe-looking door).

A massive dent was smashed into the robot, which fell to the ground, bounced off of it a couple more times, and finally came to rest in a growing heap of scrap metal, which had slowly been piling as the fight went on.

Watching Hobbes pounce upon his foe, a lightbulb turned on in Calvin's head. "Hey, guys!" he shouted. "I have an idea!"

"How reassuring." Nikola muttered, blocking an incoming punch. By now, the enemy robots had almost completely encircled the quartet, leaving them trapped in an increasingly smaller space. "We're getting swamped here, so this plan of yours better be a good one!"

Calvin ran over to the four and swung his bat. With it's superior strength and range, it proved to be substantially more effective at clearing out the area. With Calvin's help and the robots ahead of them still getting back on their feet, the group now had much more elbow room. Now that the group was in decidedly more favorable conditions, Calvin was able to explain his plan.

"Hobbes!" Calvin shouted to his tiger friend. "I need to to do the pouncing thing you always do to me and clear out a path to our bags! Sakura, you and the aliens are going to go down low and keep the umbrella above your head, so none of the robots can get you! Nikola, help get any robot that comes too close to them!"

"That's actually a pretty decent plan." Nikola noted. The rest of the group nodded in agreement. Hobbes leaped back to the rest of the group and assumed his ready-to-pounce stance.

"On your count." Nebular told Calvin.

Calvin blinked in confusion. "Why should we count down? Let's just do it now!"

"It is always best to wait until the right moment." Nebular informed him. "Without planning, everything falls apart."

"We don't have time to plan! This is the time for quick decisions! We must act now!"

"Uh, guys?" asked Hobbes, still in his ready position. "Can we decide sooner? The robots are getting back up."

It was true. While Calvin and Nebular discussed the necessities of planning, the robots had recovered from the mass toppling, and were now advancing upon the group.

Nebular cleared his throat, and said once again, "On your count."

Calvin was going to argue, but the sight of the robots made him reconsider. "ThreetwooneGO!" he shouted quickly.

Hobbes sprang forward with as much force as he could manage. The leap sent him barreling through the wall of machines, either shredding through them or knocking them into the robots next to them. The force of the charge prevented him from stopping until he slammed into the wall where the bags of stolen technology sat.

"GOGOGO!" Calvin bellowed, and the rest of the group charged across the room as quick as they could go. Despite the precautions they had put in place, they proved to be unnecessary, as the robots were a wreck, and still needed time to recover. It wasn't long until they reached the bags, plus one dazed tiger still recovering from pouncing into a wall at full force.

Sakura stood back up, allowing Galaxoid and Nebular to run over to the bag of alien technology. The pair of Khozosians rooted through the bag and quickly drew out what they deemed necessary: A handful of EMPs, a set of dark purple orbs, a pair of metal rods that resembled police batons, a neon green cube, a handful of yellow, crackling, amorphous blobs sealed inside transparent spheres, and a row of orangey-red cylinders.

Galaxoid threw the green cube to the ground, where it shattered, releasing a larger green box of light that surrounded the group.

"There." said the alien. "We should be safe in here, at least until we figure out what to do next."

There was a pause in the group. What _was_ the next plan of action?

"YOU FOOLS!" Doctor Madman screamed from the other side of the room. He was standing on his broken chair, which he had put back down in it's original spot in front of the terminal that he had used to send commands to the rest of his base. His eyes were wild, he was pointing at the group while bouncing up and down, and it was clear that he had effectively gone insane. "YOU UTTER FOOLS! That boy's imagination has given me enough power to keep generating robots non-stop for a YEAR! You can't possibly hope to win!"

"Does he realize he just gave us information that could be used to defeat him?" Sakura asked.

"How does it help us?" asked Hobbes. "We're stuck with endless waves of robots. There's no way we can beat _that_."

"We don't have to." Sakura told him. "The robot generators are the source of the robots. If we make them stop, the robots won't be endless."

"But how would we get there?" Hobbes argued. "The robots will be the thickest there."

Sakura frowned. "You're right... But we can't just give up, can we?"

"Wait a minute." Nikola interjected. "Where did that Imagination-Thingie go?"

"I think I see it there, next to Doctor Madman." Nebular noted, pointing in the direction of the mad doctor.

It was true. The Imagination Weaponizer was sitting to the right of Doctor Madman, still giving glowing, multicolor energy to the rest of the base via a tangle of cables. A lightbulb seemed to collectively activate in the mind of the group.

"The imagination stolen from Calvin is being sent to the rest of the base." Nebular observed.

"That means it must give power to the generators as well." Galaxoid added.

"So if we destroy the Imagination Weaponizer..." Nikola began.

"Then we win!" Calvin finished.

"Well, we'd be close to winning, at least." Galaxoid interjected. "We'd still need to get through the last of the robots and find our way out of here. But still, close to winning."

"But how would we get to the Imagination Weaponizer?" asked Sakura. "There's still a lot of robots out already that we need to get through."

Nebular smirked confidently and pressed a button on his alien baton. With a brief whirring sound, the metal rod assumed the shape of a hi-tech firearm. Galaxoid pressed a different button on his baton, which extended to full length.

"We should be able to fight them off." Nebular told them. "Together, we'll be able to cut a path to the Imagination Weaponizer, and shut it down."

Nebular's heroic speech was cut off by a loud cracking noise. Their glowing forcefield was beginning to give way to the barrage of energy blasts the robots were firing. It wouldn't be long before the cube would crack.

"How are we going to get out?" asked Hobbes. "We're surrounded from all sides! We'll be blasted to bits!"

Suddenly, Nikola had an idea. "Calvin?" he asked. "Do you still have that cardboard box? Y'know, the one we stayed the night in?"

"NO." Hobbes' response was immediate. "We are NOT going to bring out that cardboard death trap."

"Shut up, you wuss." Calvin told him. "Would you really choose painful, explosive death over my greatest invention?"

"Is there really a difference?"

A sound somewhere between shattering glass and a ringing bell told them that there wasn't any time to argue. They had to act fast.

Calvin stuck his hand into his backpack and pulled out a Rubik's Cube. He threw it on the ground, where it transformed into the signature cardboard box in a flash of light.

"There it is." Calvin said. "Now what were you planning to do with it?"

"If it can turn into anything, what's stopping it from turning into an impenetrable fortress?" asked Nikola. "It would certainly help right about now."

"Sorry, no can do." Calvin told him. "The milk carton ran out during our ride to this place, so it can't pull off anything more complicated than transmogrification or duplication, or perhaps cerebral enhancement if we push it hard enough. Besides, even when I had a full jug of orange juice, the most extreme thing I could manage was time travel."

Everyone paused at this bit of information. Even though part of the group already knew about this information, it was still hard to believe. The sound of crickets could be heard, despite the fact that they were currently underground in a hi-tech secret lair. Even the robots had to pause their assault.

"Yeah, long story." Calvin told them. "My point is, I don't have enough power to do something that will alter the box to that degree."

"But we do." Galaxoid held up the string of orange cylinders. "A string of these Power Capsules are enough to power our spaceship. We usually keep a couple packs on hand in case they run low. If your box can do what you say it can, one of these should do the trick."

"Thanks!" Calvin took one of the Power Capsules and opened the power hatch on the inside of the box. He took out the empty milk carton, threw it aside, and swapped it out with the Power Capsule. Getting out, he pushed the box in front of the group, produced a marker from his pocket, and wrote "Impenetrable Fortress" on the side of the box.

The power compartment sputtered and smoked, and the whole box sparked with power. The forcefield cube was shaking violently. "C'mon, c'mon..." Calvin whispered urgently. "Please don't tell me that was too much..."

Thankfully, it wasn't too much, as the box expanded outwards into a massive wall, just as the protective cube shattered. A pair of towers appeared on the side, which locked into the walls of the room. The wall itself kept going until it hit the ceiling. There was no way any of the robots could get in.

"Well, we're safe now." Calvin said proudly. "No one gets in, no one gets out. No need to thank."

"But how will we escape from the lair?" asked Sakura. "We certainly can't stay trapped down here forever."

"Oh, it's simple." Calvin told her. "I'll just write 'Opening' here on the wall, and-"

He was abruptly cut off by a burst of red energy soaring through the gap he had created. He quickly crossed out the words he had written, and the opening disappeared before any other blasts could fry him.

"Well then. Not so simple."

"We can't just run out there without a plan." Nebular told him. "Which is why I've formulated one for us."

Calvin groaned. "This is like the third time we've stopped to wait and plan in the last chapter and a half! I'm getting tired of the constant stopping, and so are the readers!"

"Don't worry, this should be the last one." Nebular told him. "Trust me on this." Calvin groaned, but still listen to what the alien had to say.

"Galaxoid and I will use our UCA technology to blast through the waves of robots." Nebular told them. "Once we have enough breathing room, Hobbes and Nikola will use their combat-oriented abilities to assist us in reaching the Imagination Weaponizer and shutting it down. Calvin and Sakura lack both natural abilities and combat experience, so they'll draw up some weaponry for the fortress and aid us from there. Everyone ready?"

Galaxoid saluted Nebular. "I'm with you until the end."

Nikola shrugged. "Not like I've got much of a choice. If I'm gonna die, I might as well make use of everything I've watched and played."

Sakura nodded. "We will get out of here. We have to. Our friends and family will be worried sick if we don't."

Hobbes gulped nervously. "You can do this, Hobbes." he muttered. "You've done it before. You can do it again."

Calvin grumbled something about wanting to be the star, but after a few seconds, he swallowed his pride and said, "Let's finish this."

* * *

Doctor Madman watched the cardboard fortress on the other side of the room intently-Well, about as intensely as he could manage while simultaneously cackling like a loon. They thought their little bunker would save them, but it had only sealed their fate! Now that they could not escape, they would be blasted to pieces as soon as the stepped foot outside!

An opening appeared on the wall of the cardboard barrier. Doctor Madman leaned over the railing, grinning madly and giddy with excitement. All of his robots took aim at the opening...

And a flash of purple fell out, landing in the middle of the crowd. The machines all turned to look at it, when suddenly, a burst of violet energy flared outwards, dragging any robots caught in it to be dragged to the center of the blast. A crackling yellow light came after it, landing in the glowing cluster of trapped robots. The flash exploded, destroying the gravity field, plus any robot in the area.

As Doctor Madman screamed in anger, Galaxoid, Nebular, Nikola, and Hobbes leaped out of the opening. Galaxoid and Nebular, with their expert training and experience, landed on their feet, coolly brandishing their weapons. Hobbes lacked their experience, but his natural big cat instincts allowed him to land on his feet as well, albeit in a more shaky manner then the aliens. Nikola, lacking both experience and natural instincts, was not so lucky, landing on top of Hobbes in a most undignified manner that ruined the moment.

The opening in the wall closed up, and two more appeared in it's place, this time sporting a pair of large, blocky cannons. Smaller openings above them allowed Calvin and Sakura to see, which would be necessary if they were to properly aim the cannons.

Nebular aimed his blaster at the army and robots, and gave the order: "Now." With that one word, the battle had begun.

Galaxoid, wielding a melee weapon, took the lead, striking at the robots before him. He ducked under a punch and struck at his assailant's knees, then, not breaking his momentum, wheeled around to take out another. He kept on striking and blocking, moving himself through the waves of robots, until he was deep inside the army. Normally, this would spell doom, but Galaxoid just smirked and tossed an EMP to the ground. The waves that sprang forth cased the robots surrounding him to deactivate and fall to the floor.

However, there was no time to celebrate. A glowing green bolt of energy struck the ground a couple inches away from him. If it had been any closer, he would have been fried on the spot. Turning around, he saw the source of the blast, a blue robot kept in the air by a built in jetpack. While it had an arm cannon, it was much smaller and sleeker than it's ground-based counterparts. Galaxoid shifted his baton to blaster mode and attempted to shoot it down, but missed every shot.

You see, the reason Galaxoid uses the baton mode over blaster mode is because he was a very poor shot, meaning he was almost useless at long-range combat. Thankfully, he had Nebular to back him up. His moon-capped companion took down his aerial adversary with a single bullet of condensed blue energy. Another wing of robots swooped in to take the first machine's place, but it didn't do much. Nebular took each of them down with a single clean shot, causing them to fall to the ground with a clatter, smoke rising from a single spot where Nebular had hit them.

A loud clanking noise sounded behind them. Turning around, they found that a wall of heavily armored robots was advancing towards them. Nebular fired multiple shots, but found they had no effect on the armor. He nodded to Galaxoid, who shifted his blaster once more, this time to the form of a combat staff. He rushed towards the robots and struck their heads, either denting it or knocking them clean off. He spun his weapon around to clear the surrounding area, then turned and jabbed his weapon into another robots behind him.

Another swooping noise came from above them. Looking up at the source, they managed to dodge a series of missiles fired by an armored flying robot floating in the air above them. The armor was clearly too thick for blaster fire to pierce, and they certainly couldn't strike it while it was still flying. They looked each other in the eye, turned around, and ran.

After running a couple of feet away from the aerial armory chasing after them, they pressed a button on their batons. Suddenly, they extended by several feet, putting them at eye level with the robot. With the press of another button, a chain of energy formed between them. The robot, moving too quickly to stop, flew right through the chain and kept going.

Nikola and Hobbes, who had been watching the alien aces in awe, were snapped out of their trance by the robot flying straight towards them. They jumped out of the way, and the robot crashed to the ground. As it hit the floor, it split apart where it had flew through the chain.

" _Woah._ " Nikola breathed. "Are you sure you guys are working for peace? Because you two are the best fighters I've ever seen! Not that I've seen many fighters in person..." The robot noted under his breath.

"Sometimes the civilizations we negotiate with aren't that willing to cooperate, and things get rather ugly." Nebular explained. "So we're given high-tech weaponry and proper training for using them. Anyways..." The alien activated the extend button on his baton, piercing through a robot that was attempting to flank him from behind. "If you've quite finished gawking, would you be able to help us with fighting off the robots and deactivating the Imagination Weaponizer?"

"Oh! Um, right!" Hobbes leaped to his feet, as did Nikola, and both ran after the alien duo. Calvin and Sakura had apparently gotten the memo as well, as the cannons they were supposed to be manning started blasting away at the recovering army of robots.

Galaxoid lobbed another purple orb into the crowd, and the robots were trapped in another field of gravity. Nebular threw a crackling yellow blob at the side opposite to the gravity bomb, and the robots there went up in an explosive burst of flame. With only two bits of alien tech, the robot army was narrowed down to only a thin line, with the exception of the cluster around Doctor Madman. The cannons from the wall rained down bursts of energy upon the cluster there, creating holes in the army. With their opposition dropping like flies, the four on foot rushed through the remaining machines with ease.

As Galaxoid and Nebular dealt with any robot that looked a good deal more threatening than the average robot foot soldier, Hobbes pounced through the line of robots before him, toppling them like bowling pins. As he got back on his feet, a flying robot swooped towards him. Suddenly, Nikola jumped directly on top of him. Using his back as a springboard, he jumped up and punched the robot out of the sky.

Nikola took a moment to pause and take in what had happened. "Huh." he muttered. "That actually worked."

Hobbes glared daggers at him. "Next time you do that, _tell me_. You are _heavy_."

Before Nikola could respond, another alien explosive soared over his head and into the slowly advancing cluster of robots, causing yet another explosion. "Now!" The alien shouted. "There's a clear path to the Imagination Weaponizer!"

Hearing the alien's words, Hobbes crouched down into a pouncing stance, readied himself, and jumped. He soared through the air towards the machine that powered their enemies, paws outstretched. However, before he could reach the blocky device, a wall appeared before him, semi-transparent and shimmering with color. He smacked into it before he could reach Doctor Madman's device and fell to the ground.

"What the heck?!" Nikola squinted at the shimmering barrier. "Where did that come from?"

"YOU IDIOTS!" Doctor Madman cackled from behind the wall. "Did you really think imagination was just a glorified power source for mechanical mooks?! WRONG! It has an almost endless array of uses, enough to revolutionize civilization as we know it! Of course, us supervillains will hoard it for ourselves, selfishness is highly valued in our communities. But with imagination on my side, I am invincible! Completely INVINCIBLE! Assuming I can figure out how to give the inputs to make this thing bring more things into being. It _is_ a budding technology, after all..."

Hobbes slashed at the wall, but to no avail. It merely bounced off the glowing surface, leaving ripples where his claws hit. Nikola joined in, but his punches were equally harmless. He sighed and turned around, only to find that more robots were advancing towards them. Nikola groaned as he readied himself for even more fighting. "Now what?"

* * *

"ARRRGH!" Calvin screamed, flinging his arms into the air. "Stupid wall! And just when we were about to finish it! RRRGH!"

Sakura watched on from her cannon as Calvin stomped and complained, shouting all sorts of random nonsense (That last one being mostly because of his parents' currently successful attempts at preventing him from learning any swear words). "Calvin?" Sakura asked.

"WHAT?!" Calvin snapped. "Can't you see I'm busy ranting about the many injustices of the world?!"

"Shouldn't we be trying to find a way to get around the barrier?"

"That's true, but ranting and complaining is more cathartic."

Sakura gave him the blankest of all blank stares. Frogs could be heard in the distance, for even the crickets were too dumbfounded to chirp.

"Okay, fine." Calvin grumbled. "I'll figure something out." He looked through the small hole in the wall that allowed him to see and fire his cannon. The wall Doctor Madman had erected was clearly too thick for Hobbes, Nikola, or the aliens to pierce through... But what about the cannons? Surely those had to go through. But if it was that simple, the climactic final battle would be boring. He needed something cooler, something flashy...

It was at moment that it hit him. He drew his Magic Marker from his pocket, uncapped it, and climbed down the ladder that took him to the ground. He then leaded over to where he had written "Twin Cannons" on the wall, crossed out the word "Twin," ran over to cross out the "s" at the end of the word, and wrote the word "Big" at the beginning, so that the words spelled "Big Cannon."

Suddenly, the two cannons sticking out of the wall disappeared into the wall. Not long after they had vanished, a single, much larger cannon appeared to take their place.

"Uh, Calvin?" asked Sakura. "Doesn't this seem a bit like overkill? We haven't even tried out the normal cannons yet. Perhaps we should use those first...?"

"Cool Stuff Rule #1:" Calvin informed her excitedly, pressing buttons on his dashboard. "ALWAYS GO FOR THE OVERKILL!"

The cannon lit up with energy, sparks crackling across it's surface and making it look a fair bit cooler than anything made of cardboard had any right to be. A bright ball of light at the end of it's opening began to grow.

Hobbes shaded his eyes as he looked towards the wall and it's massive cannon. "What the heck does he think he's doing?" he asked.

"Dooming us all." Nikola muttered.

Suddenly, the the bright light exploded out of the cannon, barreling towards Doctor Madman's barrier.

"Move, move, MOVE!" Nebular shouted. His companions certainly didn't need to be told to do so, though. The four of them leaped out of the way of the blast, which shot through the wall and completely annihilated the computer. If Doctor Madman and his Imagination Weaponizer weren't a couple feet to the left, they would have been obliterated too.

A microphone extended out of the wall, and Calvin's voice sounded from it. "Well guys, I got rid of the wall for you. No need to tha-"

Calvin's voice gave way to static before he could finish his sentence. The microphone retracted into the massive cardboard wall, followed by the cannon. Then the wall itself began to fall apart, separating into a row of cardboard squares that spiraled into one condensed spot on the floor. Soon the wall had been reduced to only Calvin and Sakura sitting in a corrugated cardboard box.

"So, uh..." Calvin said sheepishly. "I may have used up all our power with that attack."

Hobbes glared at Calvin from his side of the room, but before he could say anything, Nebular shouted, "Now's our chance! We need to shut off the Imagination Weaponizer, now!"

Hobbes looked at the rest of the group rushing towards Doctor Madman's machine, then back at Calvin. He shrugged, deciding that shouting at Calvin for nearly killing him could wait, and ran towards the Imagination Weaponizer.

The group's mad dash towards the machine was abruptly cut off when a red laser beam burnt the ground in front of them. A dark, shadowy figure struck Hobbes in the stomach, causing him to keel over in pain, then turned around and shot a volley of missiles at Galaxoid and Nebular, who were just barely able to dodge them. Nikola ran over and punched their assailant in the face, but to no avail. Their attacker responded by grabbing him by the neck and hoisting him up off the ground, then slamming him back down.

As the figure stood back up, it became clear that it was a robot, like the ones they had been fighting. However, this one was different. It was colored a dark black, with crimson glowing lights across it's body. Three small, sharp spikes lined it's shoulder pads and the bottom of it's mechanical feet. It's elbow and knee joints were covered by sharp points on the lower sections of the limbs. It's head swiveled on it's axis, allowing cold robotic visor to lock on to the two small children on the other side of the room, and three long, sharp claws extended from the back of it's hands. As it began to advance towards the two, Doctor Madman began to rant.

"This robot here is a very special one." he began. "If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have found you in that forest."

Nebular fired a volley of shots at the nightmarish machine, which simply raised it's arm. A red disc of energy emerged from the back of it's hand, and any energy blast that hit it was reflected back in the direction it was fired. Nebular just barely managed to dodge the redirected fire.

"As you might imagine, I was very pleased with the results. I believed an upgrade was in order, and so I had my upgrading machines get to work."

Nikola and Galaxoid ran up to the robot and attempted to strike it from both sides, but it simply ducked and delivered a vicious backhand to both of them.

"The process was _supposed_ to take anywhere between a month and a week, but the sudden surge of imagination energy allowed the upgrades to finish in only minutes, plus a couple extra powers to boot!"

Galaxoid extended his baton in an attempt to strike from behind, but the robot just grabbed it and swung him above it's head, causing him to crash back down behind Calvin and Sakura. By now, the robot was only a couple of feet away from them.

"With such power and efficiency, I'd say a name would be in order, don't you agree?"

Hobbes tackled into the robot from behind and began clawing at it's head. The robot reached up, grabbed him, and slammed him to the ground. Hobbes got back up on his feet, but the robot put a stop to that with a brutal headbutt that sent it's feline foe crumpling to the ground.

"Hmm... I always liked the name Edison. Yes... Edison will do."

Calvin and Sakura had abandoned the box and were now running towards the exit as fast as they could, but Edison just jumped over them and landed between them and their only chance to escape. Edison raised it's arm and slashed downwards with it's claw, but Sakura blocked it with an instinctive opening of her parasol. While she did so, Calvin ran towards his baseball bat, picked it up, and threw it at their robotic enemy, scoring a direct hit on it's head. It turned towards him, it's now-cracked visor and dented head only adding to the intimidation factor. Calvin swallowed hard, turned around, and made a mad dash in the opposite direction.

Edison chased after the boy, it's arms stretched out before it and gaining on it's target. Calvin risked a glance behind him, gasped, and tripped, tumbling forwards until he hit the wall. Dazed, he was helpless as the metal monster raised it's arm and slashed downwards-

On an empty patch of floor. Sakura and Calvin were now many feet away, standing with the rest of the team, who were now regrouping. A faint trail of purple could be seen between Sakura's original position and the place Edison had just slashed apart, and another trail between that place and the group. However, nobody noticed, and the trails quickly faded.

"When did you... _How_ did you..." Nikola trailed off.

"YOU STUPID TIN CAN!" Doctor Madman bellowed. "You were supposed to _capture_ them, not _kill_ them! I need them alive! ALL OF THEM! I put you together, and I can take you apart, _and_ _don't you forget it!_ "

Duly noting it's objective, Edison turned around and began advancing upon them once more. Hobbes was unconscious and Galaxoid was badly beaten, and both were clearly in no place to fight.

"Get back to our bags!" Nebular told them, picking up Galaxoid's baton. "There should be a box with a green plus sign on it. That's the first-aid kit, pour some of the liquid in the blue capsule in their mouths. That should heal them, but use only a small amount. Too much will overload the healing and lead to disastrous results!"

Before anyone could respond, Nebular lobbed a gravity bomb at Edison, followed by the only explosive bomb they had left. As Edison was swallowed by the explosion, Nebular opened fire on him. The rest of the group decided that now would be a good time to run. Nikola slung a groaning Galaxoid over his shoulder, and Calvin and Sakura took one of Hobbes' arms each.

As the smoke cleared, a brutally burnt Edison emerged. It's armor was charred and damage, with parts of it having been blasted off. Still, it marched forwards. The rapid fire from Nebular didn't so much as slow it down.

Calvin, Nikola, and Sakura turned around and gasped. Suddenly, there was another flash of violet light, and the group was suddenly in front of their bags.

Nikola looked around, confused. For a moment he thought he saw her right eye, normally red, glowing a bright violet color, but then it was gone. His vision sensors had been damaged in all the action, he decided. Regardless of what had happened, he wasn't in any situation to stop and think at the moment.

Calvin and Sakura began rooting through the bag. As they did so, Nebular threw an EMP at Edison, who simply destroyed it with a laser blast. Nikola wracked his mechanical brain for something he could do to put a stop to Doctor Madman's personal Terminator.

Suddenly, it hit him. "Calvin!" he shouted. "Give me that Magic Marker you use for the box!"

"What?!" Calvin shouted back. Nebular activated the energy link feature on the batons and threw one into a hole in the wall, creating a barrier before Edison. Unfortunately, it just stepped over it.

"No time to explain, just give me the marker!" Nikola shouted, his hand outstretched.

Nebular pulled back on the linked batons, causing it to fly out of the wall. With a flick of his tentacle, the linked batons wrapped around Edison like a snake. The robot collapsed to the floor.

Nebular sighed and wiped sweat off his brow. "Finally." he muttered.

"Hey, Nebular!" Sakura called from across the room. She was holding up a blue bottle in her hand. "Is this the healing liquid?"

Nebular tossed another gravity bomb at Edison to keep him down, then ran over to check the capsule. Nodding, he confirmed the contents of the pill-shaped container. "Yep, that's the one." he said. "Actually, since I have more experience with this, perhaps I should handle this."

Sakura handed him the small canister. As Nebular applied the necessary amount to Hobbes and Galaxoid, Nikola commented, "Guess I didn't need the marker after all."

Seconds after the words had left his mouth, the gravity bomb's effects had worn off. Edison snapped the binding wire of energy apart, got back to it's feet, and continued it's single-minded march.

"I take it back, give me the marker." Nikola said quickly. Calvin gave him the marker without hesitation, too terrified to stop and think. Nikola ran over to the box and wrote "Super Armor" on it's side.

The box split into small cardboard squares once again, this time swirling around Nikola and sticking to his body. In seconds, the cardboard had fused into a set of armor around his body, it's rough, block form fitting smoothly onto the robot. To top it off, a pair of cardboard plane-like wings formed on his back, couple with a set of twin thrusters to go with them. He punched his fists together and said, "It's showtime."

Edison turned to the source of the sudden surge in energy just in time to be greeted by a cardboard-clad Nikola slamming into it's face in mid-air. The robots rolled across the ground for a brief moment, before Nikola kicked Edison off of him. The vicious killer robot smacked into the ceiling and bounced back down to the ground, where Nikola grabbed it by the neck, turned around, and threw it into the wall.

"Woo!" Galaxoid shouted. The healing liquid had worked, and he was already back to his normal self. "Go Nikola!"

Calvin and Sakura watched the fight intently, munching on a bag of popcorn that they had evidently grabbed from somewhere. Hobbes, who was still rather shaken by the earlier beatdown, turned and gave a look of surprise to the kids. "Where did _that_ come from?" he asked.

"The backpack." Calvin mumbled through a mouthful of popcorn. "Want some?"

Before Hobbes could accept the offering, Nikola sent Edison hurling towards the group, forcing them to jump out of the way.

"Hey!" shouted Hobbes. "Be careful! I just recovered, and I don't want to come close to death a second time today!"

"Sorry 'bout that." Nikola apologized, before flying over them and interrupting Edison's attempted sneak attack with a flying lariat. The enemy robot was, once again, sent bouncing off the wall and back to Nikola, who delivered a mighty leaping uppercut, sending his foe back into the ceiling. He then flew up and juggled Edison against the wall with a series of knee strike, then pinned it to the ceiling with one hand and slugged him into the wall, causing the merciless machine to fall to the floor and crumple into a heap.

Nikola gently floated to the floor, arms folded confidently, and said, "Y'know, I've been smacking you around ever since I got this armor. I think I'll give you a chance. Come at me!"

"What are you doing?!" Nebular shouted. "You've seen what that thing can do! Finish it off while you have the chance!"

"Lighten up." Galaxoid told his partner, reaching into the tub of popcorn. Clearly, his previous beating had done nothing to hurt his cheery attitude. "We've seen what Nikola can do now, too. Just sit back and relax."

Edison, battered, beaten, and burnt, staggered to it's feet, and awkwardly stumbled over to Nikola, too weakened to keep fighting, but not willing to give up. It slashed at Nikola with the broken claws on it's right arm, which, other than causing a rather impressive array of sparks, had no effect on Nikola.

"Huh." Nikola muttered as Edison delivered strike after strike, each blow just as ineffective as the last. "Didn't know cardboard could cause sparks." He then grabbed Edison's arm mid-strike and spun him around. He then put his arms under both of Edison's, halting the merry-go-round, and unleashed a devastating suplex.

With Edison thoroughly smashed, Nikola had only one thing left to do. He brought his fist back, and unleashed his inner fanboy-Specifically, in the form of a brutal volley of punches, shouting "ORAORAORAORAORA!" at the top of his lungs (Figuratively, at least-Robots don't have lungs).

When he stopped punching, Edison was a dented mess in the center of the floor. Nikola winced at his handiwork. "Ouch." he muttered. "If you weren't a killer death machine that tried to kill us, I would have felt sorry for you."

Edison tried to pick itself back up, but it's one remaining arm was so utterly beaten that it didn't have the strength to do the job. With the threat neutralized, Nikola flew back to the awestruck group.

"THAT. WAS. AWESOME!" Galaxoid cheered.

"Indeed it was." Nebular agreed. "That was a very impressive display of strength. We're in your debt as well, it seems."

"It was only with my box that he could pull it off, don't forget!" Calvin butted in. "I deserve some credit too!"

Hobbes rolled his eyes at the spiky-haired boy. "I'm surprised you didn't spontaneously combust with that cardboard death trap attached to you." His face shifted to concern. "You aren't actually going to explode now, are you?"

"That sounds highly unlikely." Sakura commented. "From my experience, the box is a fairly reliable device." Ignoring Hobbes' snort, she added, "My question is how the box could work when Calvin used up all the power with the laser cannon."

"It most likely split it's power source with Nikola's." Calvin explained. "That way, it wouldn't have to carry the burden of fueling the fusion."

"That makes sense." Nikola shrugged. "I just hope it won't eat up too much of my power when we defuse. I _do_ have to give this up eventually, don't I?" he realized.

"Yeah, i'll be needing my box back soon." Calvin confirmed. "I wonder if I can get it to work on me..."

Hobbes shuddered. "Please don't."

"Mom would be wondering why you're covered in cardboard anyways." Sakura pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess you're right..." Nikola said reluctantly. "I only just got this, though..."

"Wait, where's Doctor Madman?" Galaxoid asked suddenly.

Everyone turned to where Doctor Madman was supposed to be, but he wasn't there. The group ran over to the side of the room where the mad doctor had been, but he wasn't there. Peering through the gaping hole where the giant laser blast had blown through Doctor Madman's barrier, Calvin asked, "Where could he have gone?"

"And where are all the robots?" Sakura realized. "We didn't take out the generators or the Imagination Weaponizer, so they should still be coming from every side."

"Something's not right about this." Nebular muttered.

A couple seconds after he had said the words, he was proven right. The ground started shaking, and the floor started cracking. "What's going on?!" shouted Sakura.

Her question was answered in the form of a giant robot bursting out of the floor. Compared to the smaller robots they had fought before, this bot was tall and round, it's body in the shape of a cylinder. It's head was a dome in shape, and it's arms ended in a pair of massive robotic hands. Doctor Madman laughed and shreiked from his seat in the cockpit, in the center of the robot's head.

"YOU IDIOTS!" he screamed. "While you were dealing with Edison, I planted the Imagination Weaponizer directly inside my Mega-Bot 2000! I WIN!"

Pressing buttons wildly, Doctor Madman laughed as the Mega-Bot's stomach compartment opened up, revealing a multitude of robotic tendrils, each ending in snapping robotic claws.

"RUN!" shouted Nebular. He ducked one arm and rolled away from another. "Run to the exit! It's the only chance!"

The rest of the group didn't need to be told. They ran as fast as they could, ducking and dodging the snapping arms. However, one by one, they were caught. Calvin grabbed his bat and swung wildly, but didn't see the claw sneaking up behind him. Galaxoid saw his friend get caught and rushed to save him, grabbing his baton from off the floor and activating it's vault mode. Unfortunately, he was grabbed in mid-air. Hobbes attempted to climb the walls like he did earlier, but the Mega-Bot punched the wall, causing him to loose his grip and fall into a waiting tendril.

Nikola looked down to see Nebular grabbed from behind, then to Sakura, the only one left uncaught other than himself. A spark of determination flared in him as he saw the mass of arms reaching towards her. Swiftly maneuvering between the grasping tentacles, he dived towards Sakura, and pushed her out of the way.

Unfortunately, this didn't help much at all. For one, Nikola was caught. For another, Nikola's lack of experience in flying led a lack of experience in positioning, so Sakura was sent hurling through the air. She yelped in surprise and instinctively unfurled her parasol, then yelped again when she saw another claw reaching for her. She slammed her eyes shut, expecting the claw to grab her... But it didn't.

Instead, she disappeared in a flash of purple, reappearing behind the Mega-Bot. A trail of violet connected where she was now and where she was before. Opening her eyes, she saw that she was facing the exit. She was so close to escaping! Then she turned her head towards her friends, all trapped in Doctor Madman's grasp. Could she really leave them like this?

Then another claw grabbed her. Doctor Madman had swung the Mega-Bot around, so that they were all facing the exit. "Ooh, goody goody!" Doctor Manman crowed. "I knew my sensors picked up something in you! You'll be very useful indeed!"

"DON'T TOUCH HER!" Nikola roared, desperately struggling against the claw that clenched him.

Sakura looked around in confusion. What was he talking about?

That question would have to wait. Now Doctor Madman was waving at the exit madly. "Take one last look at the exit to the outside world!" he yelled. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused, and it was clear that what little sanity he had left was long gone. "Now say goodbye to it! Bye-bye, outside world!"

As soon as he finished his sentence, the door burst off it's hinges, taking part of the wall with it. Standing in the doorway was Mr. Bill, a frown upon his face. And behind him was a massive black bear.

"Frank," he said in a calm voice that did not match the fire in his eyes, "Care to explain what's going on here?"

* * *

 **Author's Note's: And it's finally out! I hope it wasn't too much of a slog to get through this double-length chapter. I _did_ consider splitting it into two, but I had promised the climactic final battle would be this chapter, so I couldn't do that. And yes, we have the Mega-Bot 2000, but it actually-Well, I can't spoil too much, can I?**

 **Y'know, the main issue I have with this story is that it strayed too far from the comics too quickly. I wanted to introduce all the major characters before I wrote any more stories, but some of the fights got rather brutal (Looking at you, Edison), and the humor petered out a bit. I also feel like Calvin got reduced to comic relief just a bit too much, despite him being the main character. I also feel as though my OCs stole the spotlight a little, which is decidedly _not_ a good thing for OCs to do.**

 **On the topic of Edison, Nikola's power-up was one of my favorite parts to write. It was quite cathartic to finally let loose with a powered-up protagonist after relying on gadgets and fisticuffs. It suits my ideas of epic fight scenes pretty well. After this story, though, I'll work on more humor-based works, hopefully a bit closer to the comics.**

 **Anyways, next chapter will be the last, I promise. I'll see you there!**


	12. Bear, Bot, and Bill

**Author's Note: So. Not _quite_ the final chapter. I would have made it the end, but I recently joined this wiki called Fantendo, for all your ideas relating to games. Kinda like Fanfiction, but for games instead of stories-As in, concepts of games, not the games themselves, so you can post stuff there if you want to. If you see someone on Fantendo who goes by the handle of SharkLord1954, just know that he's me.  
**

 **Anyways, I was pretty focused on Fantendo for that time, and my schedule began to slip, so now the second half of the last chapter got merged with the epilogue, so you won't have to wait too long. I'll try my best to do what I say I'll do, but no promises-You've seen what comes out of that.**

 **Anyways, you may read now.**

* * *

Mr. Bill stood before "Mr. Frank's" massive mechanical monstrosity, his campers struggling in it's arms. The bear stood behind him, arms raised, as to block any potential attack. "I'll say this again," Mr. Bill said sternly. "Care to explain what's going on here?"

"... _You_ _._ " the mecha-piloting madman hissed. " _YOU!_ You shouldn't be here! How did you find my secret lair?!"

"Mr. Grizz here followed the scent." Mr. Bill motioned to the bear behind him. The bear stood about twice the size of Bill, with deep black fur and rich brown eyes.

"When did you find a bear?!" Nikola shouted from the claw that held him. Evidently, the cardboard was amplifying his voice, because the sound echoed off the walls of the room.

"He's the camp mascot." Mr. Bill explained. "I bring him out every year. You were with Sakura, so I know you saw him." Mr. Grizz waved in a friendly manner, but still kept his eyes on the Mega-Bot.

The counselor's eyes shifted to the pair of struggling aliens. "I don't seem to remember you two, though. When did you come in?"

"He seems to be taking the non-human parties surprisingly well." Nebular noted under his breath.

He couldn't answer the question, though, because Doctor Madman bellowed, "STOP TAKING ALL THE ATTENTION FROM ME! I AM DOCTOR MADMAN, AND I DEMAND YOUR UTMOST FOCUS!"

The loon rapidly mashed buttons on the dashboard, and various panels opened up across the Mega-Bot, unleashing a salvo of missiles in the direction of Bill and the bear. Mr. Grizz instinctively threw his arms around his friend, shielding him from the flying explosives.

Doctor Madman burst out laughing once again as Mr. Bill and Mr. Grizz were enveloped in a cloud of smoke, while everyone else could only look on in horror.

As the mad doctor continued laughing, Hobbes' superb tiger eyesight picked something up through the smoke. Was that...? No, it couldn't be... Could it?

"Uh, dude?" Nikola said to Doctor Madman.

"WHAT?!" Doctor Madman snapped, a deranged glint in his eyes. "What is it?! What is so important that you address your superior in such a way?!"

"The counselor and the bear are still alive." Nikola told him, confirming Hobbes' suspicions.

Doctor Madman burst out laughing. "That's preposterous!" he guffawed. "Nobody could survive that!"

"But they did." Sakura told him. "They're completely unharmed."

"DO NOT INTERRUPT WHEN SOMEONE IS SPEAKING, YOU RUDE LITTLE GIRL!" Doctor Madman screeched.

"But they're still alive. They're just walking it off like nothing happened." Nikola pointed in their direction.

Following the robot's finger, Doctor Madman found that he was telling the truth. Mr. Bill and Mr. Grizz were still standing, with nary a burnt piece of cloth or singed patch of fur. In fact, they were strolling _towards_ the giant robot that had just tried to blast them to bits.

Doctor Madman growled in frustration and furiously mashed the buttons on the keyboard, launching another barrage of explosive death. Once again, he burst into laughter. Once again, the smoke cleared to reveal that Mr. Bill and his bear were completely unharmed. And once again, Doctor Madman didn't notice through his maniacal laughter.

"They survived it again." Calvin informed the unhinged man. "I think the bear might be bulletproof."

"They were blasted with _missiles_ , Calvin." Nikola corrected him as Doctor Madman screamed in frustration once again. "Missiles are _not_ bullets."

"Fine, the bear is _missile_ -proof." Calvin grumbled. "What's the difference? It's completely indestructible!"

Doctor Madman mashed buttons madly, and a swarm of mechanical tentacles topped with hungrily snapping metal claws of various sized extended from it. Mr. Bill and Mr. Grizz just kept walking forwards.

A swarm of smaller tendrils reached them first. However, they might as well have never been sent out, as Mr. Grizz just grabbed them all at once in one massive paw, and ripped them off, leaving them flailing around helplessly. Sets of larger claws reached for them, but Mr. Grizz batted them away. One managed to grab on to Mr. Bill, but Mr. Grizz grabbed it and tore it off the arm it was connected to, causing the metal claw to fall off harmlessly.

Next came a hail of rocket-propelled boxing gloves. Mr. Grizz wrapped himself around his human friend and kept marching forwards. The gloves bounced off uselessly, like balls against a wall.

Doctor Madman let out a scream of anger, let out a string of words I dare not repeat, and smashed his face into the dashboard many times over, again and again and again. The Mega-Bot lifted up it's arm, and brought down it's massive metal fist upon the advancing duo.

The captured group held their breath as the Mega-Bot's hammer blow rocketed downwards like a meteor. Mr. Grizz just looked up and raised his arm. A massive _CRASH!_ resonated throughout the room, and a crater appeared where the fist lay.

For a brief couple of seconds, nobody moved, nobody breathed, all trapped in stunned silence. Doctor Madman howled in laughter as the Mega-Bots hand began to raise-Revealing Mr. Grizz hanging on to the bottom of the fist, Mr. Bill in one of the bear's massive furry arms. Neither had so much as a scratch on them.

 ** _"WHAT THE !^ & $^*^%!^$#$%^&*!SON OF A $*&%#%!&*^WORTHLESS PIECE OF $#!?*^ !GO TAKE A&*#~$*^$%^!AAAAAAAAAAGH!"_** Doctor Madman let out a very loud chain of anger-fueled words that no living thing should be allowed to repeat as Mr. Grizz forcibly rotated the hand around so that he could climb up the arm of the Mega-Bot.

"Just what _is_ that bear made out of?!" Nebular asked incredulously. "No animal should be able to survive that much firepower, at least not one from Earth!"

By now, Mr. Grizz was halfway up the Mega-Bot's arm. Deftly batting away the remaining snapping claws, he clambered up the massive metal pillar and onto the shoulder. From there, he dug his claws into the head and crawled up, so that Mr. Bill, still clutched in one of the bear's arms, was eye-to-eye with Doctor Madman. At least, he _would_ be eye-to-eye with the fake counselor if he wasn't throwing a massive temper tantrum.

 _ **"AAAAAAAA**_ -YOU!" Doctor Madman finally noticed the counselor looming over him. "YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING! STOP IT! _I'M SUPPOSED TO **WIN!"**_

"I don't know quite what's going on, but I know you're putting these children in danger." Mr. Bill said sternly. "As the head counselor of Camp Grizzly-Which you took over and turned into Camp Scientist under the false guise of a kindly donor-It is my duty to keep these children out of harm's way."

"YOU JUST MET THEM!" Doctor Madman screeched. "YOU SHOULDN'T CARE ABOUT THEM! YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IF THE INHUMAN CREATURES THEY BROUGHT WITH THEM ARE SAFE!"

Dr. Bill watched as Doctor Madman desperately tried to latch on to something to reassure himself that he was better than the head counselor of Camp Grizzly. "In all honesty, that's just kinda sad." he muttered.

"Please disregard the creature comment." Nikola called from his claw. "I'm a robot, so anyone calling me a creature is factually incorrect."

"We'll gladly accept the inhuman part as a complement, though." Hobbes added. "I find much pride in not being human!"

"SHUT UP!" Doctor Madman cried. "SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU, OR I'LL GIVE THE COMMAND TO BLOW UP THIS ENTIRE BASE!" He reached over a large red button labeled SELF-DESTRUCT, covered by a plastic lid that Doctor Madman had torn right off during his tantrum.

Everyone froze. "You wouldn't really... Would you?" Mr. Bill gave a look that was somewhere between disbelieving and worry.

"I WILL AND I'M GONNA!" Doctor Madman screamed.

Nikola sighed. "Of course he has a self-destruct button. Well, nice knowin' ya. We had a good run."

Hobbes struggled against the claw that held him, Sakura started quietly whispering "No, no, no," Galaxoid looked around the room, trying to see if there was anything he could use to stop the mad doctor, and Nebular just silently accepted his fate.

"THREE!" Doctor Madman started counting down. Calvin put his hands to his head wondering what to do. Suddenly, it hit him.

Mr. Grizz raised his paw to stop Doctor Madman, but as soon as he saw the bear raise it's paw, he belted out, "TWO ONE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

At the same time, a _ZAP!_ could be heard throughout the room.

Hobbes tentatively opened one eye, saw that he wasn't dead, and allowed himself to open his other. Looking around, he saw that the room had clearly _not_ self-destructed. Everyone else in the Mega-Bot's claws were also coming to the realization that the structure hadn't exploded, with the sole exception of Calvin. The boy was grinning smugly, a black water gun in his hands.

"Wait a minute..." Hobbes narrowed his eyes. "Is that the...?"

"Yep, this is indeed the Transmogrifier Gun!" Calvin beamed. "I was scratching my head, trying to figure out what to do, and then I found this in my hair!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on for just a second." Nikola interjected. "Let me get this straight: You had a portable Transmogrifier on hand. You had it with you this entire time. _And you never thought to use it_."

"You see, I had recently discovered that my hair was actually a prime storage space." Calvin explained to him. "I had put the Transmogrifier Gun in there for safe keeping, but I had completely forgotten about it in the bus ride to the camp due to the brain-crippling boredom. I've just started using my hair, you see, so I have to actively remember there's stuff in there, and I'm not a very active person."

"I live with him, can confirm." Hobbes added. "The only active person in our household is his Dad, and he's a guy who brushed off starving to death on a deserted island as building character."

Nikola made some sort of strangling gesture, while emitting a noise that was somewhere between a deep-throated growl and a static hissing.

"Shh, I want to watch this." Galaxoid shushed them, watching Mr. Bill and Mr. Grizz looming over Doctor Madman's crazed laughing fit. The mad doctor had finally begun to slow down, no doubt because the base hadn't exploded like he wanted to. "What?!" he demanded. "Why is everything still standing?! Where's the explosion?! Who robbed me of my boom?!"

He turned back to the self-destruct button and smashed it rapidly, then stopped when he realized that someone had removed it and replaced it with a flat can of beans. Doctor Madman screamed out yet another loud string of words I cannot repeat. Evidently, Mr. Grizz had decided that it was time to get this over with, because he tapped the whining manchild on the shoulder. Doctor Madman whirled around and spat, "WHAT IS I-"

Mr. Grizz's fist stopped inches before the loon's face, creating a gust of wind that blew his spiky white hair into the glass behind him. "Oh." he said in a calm voice he hadn't been heard using for the entire story. Evidently, the wind had blown some sense into him. "Thank you for not punching my head o-"

Mr. Grizz simply flicked Doctor Madman's head, instantly knocking him unconscious.

"Well, that about wraps it up." Mr. Bill commented.

"Huh." muttered Nikola. "I kinda expected the Mega-Bot 2000 to be a bit more of a threat."

"In all honesty, the robot you trashed was worse." Nebular agreed. "What did the guy call it? Edward? Eli?"

"I think it was Edison." Sakura corrected him.

"Yeah, that's it. He was a lot more climactic than the Mega-Bot. Speaking of which," Nebular turned to their savior down below. "Is their any chance you two can figure how to get us down?"

"We're working on it." Mr. Bill reaffirmed them. "While we're at it, I know the kids and their friends they brought with them, but I never did get your name. Mind telling me?"

"Not at all. My name is Nebular, and my star-capped friend is Galaxoid. We're Khozos natives, and Seekers-That is, ambassadors and knowledge gatherers for the United Cosmic AlliAANCE!"

The alien was cut off when Mr. Grizz gave the Mega-Bot a couple of well-placed whacks, causing the entire machine to shake. The claws then held their prisoners tight released their quarry, sending them falling to the ground.

Sakura opened her parasol and began to float gently to the ground. Galaxoid and Nebular opened their hats into parachutes and did the same. Nikola used the thrusters on his box-armor to fly to his floating friends and gently lower them to the ground. Hobbes' tiger instincts allowed him to jump over to the side of the massive machine and slide down, but not without making a horrible scraping noise that viciously assaulted his eardrums. Calvin aimed his Transmogrifier Gun at himself, and disappeared in a puff of smoke. He reappeared on the ground, completely unharmed. "That's me, the human light particle!" he declared proudly.

Mr. Grizz landed on the ground with a loud _thud!_ , Mr. Bill in hand. "Everyone okay?" the counselor asked. When they all nodded yes, he turned to the bear behind him and chided, "Tell me when you're about to do that next time!"

"Alright, all we have to do is grab our stuff, and then we can all go home." Nebular said.

"Actually, I did the first part already." Galaxoid told him, holding up the bag of reclaimed alien gadgets and gizmos in one tentacle, and offering Calvin his backpackwith the other. "So, does that mean we can go home now?"

"But how are going to find our way out?" Sakura realized. "It's a maze in there!"

"Actually, we may have a way around that." said Mr. Bill. "Y'see, Mr. Grizz and I were jumped by gangs of robots just about every time we turned a corner, so Mr. Grizz ended up creating a lot of scrap metal heaps. At some point we decided it would be a good idea to leave a trail of those parts behind us, so we'd have a good idea of the way out."

"Good thinking." Hobbes complemented. "Still, that sounds like a long way out. If only we had a vehicle with us..."

Everyone in the room turned to Nikola-Minus Hobbes, who hated the box with his every fiber, and the two new additions, who, of course, had no idea about the box.

"Fine." the robot grumbled. "I'll give up the box."

Reluctantly, he let the cardboard armor peel off of him, and the pieces flew down to one spot. Soon, the box had completely reformed.

"That's our ride?" asked Mr. Bill. "Seems a little small, if you ask me."

Calvin and Sakura exchanged grins (Nikola would have joined, but the loss of the sweet new powered armor left him a little salty). Calvin brought out the Magic Marker, and wrote "8-Person Size" on the side of the box, in his signature messy scrawl. The box expanded to a size large enough to fit eight people.

"Impressive." Mr. Bill noted. "Looks like we've got a rising inventor on hands."

"Please don't encourage him." Hobbes pleaded. "That thing's already dangerous enough as it is."

Calvin looked back at Mr. Bill, grinning proudly, and realized that Mr. Grizz counted to four people on his own, at least in terms of size. he scribbled out the "8" on the box and wrote "12" above it instead. The box swelled even larger, knocking over Calvin, Sakura, and Nikola in the process.

As Calvin got himself back on his feet, he realized that there was no way the box would fit through the doors. He wrote in parentheses, "Bigger on inside," causing it to shrink back down to normal size. A ladder stuck out of the opening on the top of the corrugated cardboard cube.

"I believe a time where we can observe your technology in greater detail is in order." Nebular requested. "Your technology is far beyond that of what we've seen of Earth so far."

"I'll explain on the ride back." Calvin told him as he climbed into the box. "I'll set the box on autopilot and have it track the trail of scrap the bear left, so I'll be able to show you around."

"What are we supposed to do with Doctor Madman?" Sakura piped up. "We can't just leave him here, can we? What if he wakes up? He might just go back to what he was doing before."

"And people will be wondering what happened to 'Mr. Frank,' won't they?" Mr. Bill added. "We'll have to take back with us. Perhaps make up a story, too, because I don't see many people believing any of this actually happened."

"And we'll need to do something about that weird Imagination Weaponizer, or whatever he called it." Calvin remembered, halfway down the ladder. "That's where the robots came from, right? What is someone digs it back up and uses it for themselves?! We have to destroy it!"

"But where did it go?" Nikola questioned. "We need to find it first."

"I think I can see it sticking out of the back of the Mega-Bot." Hobbes noted from the other side of the room. Evidently, he had fled as soon as Calvin had brought out the cardboard death trap.

The group ran to where Hobbes was so they could see. Indeed, the Imagination Weaponizer was sticking out of the robot's back, sparking with the remnants of it's stolen imagination energy.

"It must have been powering the Mega-Bot." Nebular realized, noticing a couple of open holes across the Mega-Bot's back. "It looks pretty unfinished-looking. Doctor Madman probably put the Imagination-Weaponizer in one of the holes in a last-ditch attempt."

"We'll have to destroy it somehow, before he wakes up." Nikola commented. "If my memory of sequel tropes serve me right, he'll be coming back for revenge sooner or later. It would be best to give him as little advantages as possible."

"But how are we supposed to get up there?" Calvin pointed out. "It's not like any of us can climb or anything, right...?"

Everyone turned towards Hobbes, who looked very apprehensive about it. "I am _n_ _ot_ going up there." he told them adamantly. "I've had enough life-risking situations to last me for the rest of my nine lives!"

Behind him, Mr. Grizz jumped up to the Imagination Weaponizer, scaring Hobbes out of his wits and spurring him to run to the other side of the room. In a single bound, the massive grizzly bear reached the Imagination Weaponizer and punched it with all of his might. The horrible device exploded in a burst of multicolor energy, blowing a massive hole in the Mega-Bot, which fell to it's knees.

Mr. Grizz was sent hurtling to the ground. Everyone jumped out of the way of the falling bear, who hit the ground with a _thud!_ Before they had any time to worry about him, he sat back up and flashed a reassuring thumbs-up. Doctor Madman, who had evidently also been sent flying, landed on the bear's outstretched arm. He groggily looked around as he came to, realized that he was face-to-face with a hulking grizzly bear, screamed, and fainted. Again.

"Huh." Nikola muttered. "That was convenient."

"So we can _finally_ get out of here?" Calvin asked exasperatedly.

"Yes, we can go home." Nebular told him.

Everyone gladly entered the box-With the obvious exception of Hobbes, who had to be dragged in there. Mr. Grizz had some trouble getting in, but a brief, temporary resizing made it work. Calvin strolled up to the dashboard and began typing in the coordinates. After making sure that the box would follow the trail of scrap metal Mr. Grizz had left, he declared, "We've had a good time, but we can all agree that we've had enough. It's time to go home!"

The box slowly began to levitate off the ground. It pointed in the direction of exit, then zoomed straight through the doors, in the direction of the outside world. They would be trapped in the awful base no longer.

They were coming home.

* * *

About an hour had passed. Nikola was giving Hobbes a tutorial of how to play various games on the console he had brought, Sakura, Mr. Bill, and the aliens were being given a guide to the box by Calvin, and Mr. Grizz was keeping watch over their captive, Doctor Madman, who went through a cycle of waking up, seeing Mr. Grizz, fainting, and repeating.

Calvin shut the hatch to the box's fuel supply, where he had placed a juice box. "There!" he said with a satisfied smile. "All done!"

"I still don't understand how this was supposed to run without fuel." Mr. Bill asked. "Doesn't it need that?"

"Yes, it usually would," Calvin explained, "But Nikola shared his power with it when it they fused, so it had a bit left over to keep it going."

"Wait, wouldn't that lower Nikola's power supply?" Sakura realized.

"Don't worry, my batteries have about three hours left." the robot informed her. "I should be able to hold on until we get out."

As soon as he finished speaking, a smooth robotic voice informed them, "You have reached the surface. Thank you for choosing Corrugated Cardboard Airlines."

"I'm beginning to think our world runs on jinxes." Nikola theorized.

The box opened up, flooding the box in light. Calvin screamed and covered his eyes, clearly needing some time to readjust to the sunlight. He wasn't alone, as everyone but Mr. Bill and Mr. Grizz also covered their eyes. Doctor Madman woke up again, saw Mr. Grizz again, and fainted again.

After everyone had readjusted, they clambered out of the box, one by one. Calvin spread his arms wide, soaking in the wonderful sunlight that he had been deprived of for so long. "Ah, sweet, sweet sunlight!" he sighed. "And the dirt! Never again will I have to walk on cold, unfeeling metal! I kiss the sweet ground!"

As soon as he did so, he starting spitting and coughing, apparently not having realized that kissing the dirt was a bad idea. "Smooth move there, Prometheus." Nikola snarked.

"So, now that we're out...' Hobbes said. "Don't you owe me a little something?"

"Huh? Oh, the fish!" Sakura remembered. "I know a few good places, but my family was moving because of Mom's work, so I'm not sure about where we'll go then. I'll get back to you about that, I promise."

"You were moving while you were at camp?" Mr. Bill asked.

"Mom's work means she has a lot on her hands, and the house we were going to had a lot of renovation going on." the girl explained. "We needed something for me to do over the summer, and this was the cheapest and closest."

"What if the house isn't what you expected, or you think the old house was better?" Hobbes asked.

"I'm okay with surprises." Sakura told him. "And I'm sure the new house will be good."

"We've been there a couple times, so we at least have a good idea of what it looks like.' Nikola added.

Before the conversation could go any further, an "Aha!" cut through the air. Galaxoid and Nebular were in the process of removing a series of thick ropes that covered a sleek, round spaceship. A large cloth lay on the ground a couple feet away.

"Ah, so that's your spaceship?" Mr. Bill asked.

Galaxoid nodded enthusiastically. "Yep! Doctor Madman must have found it after he caught us, but in the end, it just makes things convenient for us!"

"Our stay with you end here." Nebular informed them. "We'll check back on you soon, once everything is back to normal."

"Wait, how are you supposed to find _us_?" asked Nikola. 'You don't know where we're moving to!"

"Oh, don't worry." Nebular did a weird, lopsided blink that seemed to lean closer to his left. "We have our ways."

The last of the ropes fell away, and the aliens began to board their ship. "Oh, and one last thing," Nebular added. "Mind if we take these ropes and cloth with us for studying?"

"Not at all!" Mr. Bill told them. "It would certainly make it easier for the park rangers, too! Don't want any litter in our forests!"

"You're welcome!" A bag extended from the ship, grabbed the ropes and cloth, and retreated back to the belly of the spacecraft. The spaceship's thrusters activated, lifting it off the ground, and it swiveled towards an open patch of forest. It's cloaking device activated as well, and it seemingly vanished from view. It was certainly still there, though, as the group could definitely feel the wind from the blast-off blow their hair back.

A brief silence settled over the group as they watched the ship fly off. Finally, Nikola broke it. "Does everybody blink like that where those guys come from, or did he just try to wink at us because that's what we're used to?"

That question would have to wait, though. A groan came from behind them, and Doctor Madman slowly got to his feet. "Ugh... What-" he screamed when he saw Mr. Grizz, but this time, he didn't faint. Instead, he jumped to his feet, and pointed an accusing finger at them. "YOU!" he screamed. " _YOU! RUINED! **EVERTHING!**_ "

With a scream of anger, he charged directly at the group, hands outstretched.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Well then. That took a while, but they're finally out. _Phew!_**

 **Sorry if I made the Mega-Bot seem too threatening. I was going to make it the final battle at first, but then I decided to have Mr. Bill and Mr. Grizz come in and save them at the last moment. No, I don't know what that bear's made of, either.**

 **I also feel as though Doctor Madman could have been handled a bit better, too. We was going to be a more comedic villain, but I accidentally made him come off as threatening in his segments, so I ended up making him a psychopathic manchild in an attempt to bridge the two portrayals.**

 **And lastly, the new characters I came up with in the middle of the story-Dr. Mind and Edison-I have some plans for, so please look forwards to that.**

 **See you in the very definitely final chapter! (Hopefully without another delay...)**


	13. Let's Go Home

**Author's Note: Well, this is it. After more a year, over than a thousand views, and thirteen chapters, I have finished. I would like to thank all of my readers, no matter if they've stuck with me the whole way, hopped on towards the end, or started, dropped it, and came back later. I would also like to thank those who gave me the wonderful feedback, which I shall keep in mind for my future tales.**

 **Alright, I am done. You may read now.**

* * *

It was Camp Scientist's darkest hour. Parents were lining up in droves to take their children back early, demanding refunds and threatening lawsuits. The two most prolific counselors had vanished, and Calvin and Sakura still hadn't been found. Calvin's parents, in particular, had dissolved into a wreck, overtaken by fear. Fear of what happened, fear of the very real possibility that their only child might be gone, and fear of what they would do if Calvin really was gone.

The rescue party they had sent out were hanging their heads with their failure, and the leader of the team had stepped up on the stage to make a somber announcement. "Campers, counselors, and parents." he said to the watching crowd. "We have searched the forest, every square inch of it, for a sign, a trace of the lost counselors and campers. However, we have found missing. I'm sorry, and I say this with regret, but Calvin, Sakura, Mr. Bill, and Mr. Frank have been pronounced-"

"Hello there!"

Everyone turned in the direction the voice had come from. Mr. Bill was casually strolling down the path to the theater where everyone had gathered. A stuffed bear was carried under one arm, and a dirtied, beaten, struggling Mr. Frank was slung over his shoulder. Behind him was Calvin and Sakura, holding their toy tiger and robot and smiling like nothing had happened.

"Did anything important happen while we were gone?" asked Mr. Bill.

"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!" "Mr. Frank" screamed. "I'LL RISE UP AN HAVE MY REVENGE!"

"Oh yeah, and we found this guy too." Mr. Bill dropped the fake counselor on the ground. He god back up, hissing and spitting, and charged at Mr. Bill. The counselor just held him back with one arm as he explained what had happened. "Turns out this guy had taken the kids into the forest for _something_ , but we don't know what. Thankfully, I found them before anything bad could happen."

Calvin's parents rushed past them and went directly for his son, asking if he was okay with tears in their eyes. Their son squirmed out of their grip, as to avoid having his lungs crushed. "I'm _fine_!" he reassured them. "Nothing happened!"

"It's true." Sakura agreed. "He didn't do much more than meaningless ranting. I think he might need to see an expert."

" _LIES!_ " The madman spat. "It's all lies! I AM THE GREAT DOCTOR MADMAN, AND YOU WILL RESPECT MY NAME!"

"See what I mean?"

The rescue team walked over to the man who claimed to be "The great Doctor Madman," and took him by the arms. "We'll get this guy some help." The leader informed them. "You can have your touching reunions now."

As the raving lunatic was dragged away, Calvin's parents hugged him deeply. Calvin, who had not been nearly as worried as they were, struggled against their grip. Sakura just watched the event unfold.

Eventually, Calvin's parents released him and noticed Sakura. "Hello." she told them. "I'm Sakura, and this is my robot friend, Nikola. We met Calvin when we were at camp."

"Ah, I see you've been making new friends!" Dad exclaimed happily. "I'm glad to see you making new friends and-" He didn't need Mom's death glare to stop himself. Inhaling deeply, he decided now was not the time to bring up character building.

"Calvin." Mom began. "We were really, really worried about you. We were scared about what might have happened. We wouldn't know what to do if you..." She trailed off.

"Well, I didn't, whatever we're referring to with that." Calvin replied coolly. "So I guess we can just go home and relax, right?"

It was around then that he realized that more than half the campers had gathered around him in a circle. Susie stepped out of the mass to talk to him.

"Calvin..." she started. "We wanted to let you know that, uh... Well, even though we don't always get along, we were really worried about you, and we're glad you're okay."

"Huh. Um, thanks, I guess..." Calvin trailed off, seconds before the mass of campers dragged him into a massive group hug.

Hobbes, Nikola, and Sakura observed the ongoing hugfest. "Geez, looks like Calvin's pretty big around here, huh?" observed Nikola. "Why doesn't Sakura get this kind of attention?"

"Well, most people here have had to put up with him for most of their recent years." Hobbes informed him. "So yeah, he's kind of a big deal."

By now, the hug-mob had brought forth Moe, who was looking rather awkward and reluctant.

"Go on, give him a hug." Susie urged him. Calvin and Moe gave each other and awkward stare. Clearly, the two of them did not share Susie's sentiments. Eventually, Moe conceded, reached forward, and gave Calvin a bone-crushing hug that he most definitely didn't give honestly.

Hobbes, Nikola and Sakura were watching from their spot over to the side. "Well then." Hobbes noted. "That is one thing I did _not_ expect to occur in any of my nine lives. I hope you don't feel left out by this, Sakura." He added.

"It's fine." she replied. "You guys are the only people here I really know anyways."

"Did you have any friends back at your old place?" Hobbes inquired.

"No, just Nikola."

"Sounds kinda like me and Calvin. It's usually just us against the world, and sometimes each other. I never though I'd see anyone we know beyond his parents give him a hug, much less _everyone_ we know."

"Guess we're both part of lonely pairs." Nikola noted. "We'll try to keep in check the best we can, but I'm not sure how. I don't suppose you have a phone number anything?"

"No, but I'm sure we'll find a way." Hobbes replied. "Life's just works that way, you know?"

"I don't see how that's scientifically possible." Sakura told him. "Is there some sort of explanation the scientific community has agreed on?"

Hobbes shrugged. "Eh, not really. I kinda just go with wherever the flow takes me, as long as it's not off a cliff or anywhere else that's extremely life-risking."

"Then why do you still stick with Calvin so much?" Nikola asked. "I can say first-hand that he's probably one of the biggest threats to survival there is."

"That's a good question. Maybe living with danger at every turn isn't as bad when you're with a friend."

"That makes sense." Sakura agreed.

Eventually, the celebrations were over, and it was time to go home. The bus had rolled up to the parking lot, and the children that hadn't been taken home already were climbing up the stairs to the big green vehicle.

"So what'll you be doing?" asked Mom.

"Huh?" Calvin looked up confusedly.

"I mean, do you want to go home in our car or the bus?"

"Of _course_ I'm taking the car! I never want to see another school bus again as long as I live! But first..."

He ran over to the bus, positioning himself so that he could clearly see the bus driver through the open doors."Hey, you! Yeah, you!"

The bus driver groaned as he realized just who was speaking to him. "Oh no..."

"Remember me? The boy you promised would get twenty dollars for getting to the camp first? Well, there wasn't any! Just how many children have you lied to? I hope your conscience has been tearing you up for that all week!"

Calvin's parents grabbed him and dragged him away. He still kicked and screamed at the poor, unfortunate bus driver the entire way back. "That's the last time I pull that trick again." he muttered under his breath.

"I think he was lying about the free money." Hobbes pointed out when they got in the car.

"I know." Calvin admitted. "I just felt like screwing with him."

As the car began to drive away, Calvin and Hobbes looked out the window to see Sakura and Nikola waving at him one last time before they got on the bus.

"I wonder if we'll ever see them again." Calvin wondered aloud.

"I had that same talk with them earlier." Hobbes said. "I think we'll run into them again some day. The world just works like that."

"How so?" Calvin inquired.

"I don't think I can explain it. It's just one of those things that you know happen but can't justify, like gravity or hunger."

"Those have scientific equations behind them, though."

"Yeah, but this is different. Kinda like fate."

"Like how we met each other?"

"Yeah, like that. How _did_ we run into each other, anyhow?"

"I don't remember. I think it had something to do with tuna, though."

"Yeah, that makes sense."

The two watched Camp Scientist, now Camp Grizzly once again, shrink further and further into the distance.

"D'you think we'll ever go back here?" asked Hobbes.

" _Heck no_. I want to stay away from any and all summer camps as long as I live." Calvin replied.

"Do you think we'll see Doctor Madman ever again?"

"Depends if the writers up above feel like making a sequel."

"Is that who you think dictate what happens in the universe?"

"Well, _someone_ has it out for me."

Hobbes pondered over this for a little. "If those writers ever feel like making a sequel, just know that I'll have your back, through and through."

"And the same to you." Calvin replied.

The two shared a heartfelt hug.

* * *

It was a beautiful summer day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and it seemed as if there was nothing that could bring an end to the peace.

Unfortunately, that feeling of everlasting peace was little more than an illusion.

"CALVIN!"

Calvin groaned. It was morning, and his mom was calling for him from downstairs. Unfortunately for his mom, Calvin's brain was still in sleep mode, and didn't want to send the rest of his body the message for it to get up.

Calvin pulled the blanket over his head and tried to sleep some more.

"CALVIN, GET UP!" His mother continued to shout from the floor below. Calvin tried to bury himself deeper into the bed.

Calvin groaned, and tried to bury himself deeper into his covers. He was tired as usual, but this time, he was even more tired than normal. Part of it was the fact that he was finally in his own bed again, in his own house, without fear of whatever hellish outdoor activity he was supposed to do that day. Another part was because he was exhausted by the fierce battle against the forces of Doctor Madman the day before.

However, I think the real reason he refused to get up was the fact that he had made two new friends, the first real, completely unambiguous friends he had made in a very long time, only to leave them after a week, with the very real possibility that he would never see them again. When put in that situation, I would rather stay in bed and never get up as well.

Unfortunately for Calvin, his mother had other plans. "THIS IS THE LAST TIME, CALVIN!" she bellowed from the bottom floor.

To Calvin's credit, he didn't make a fuss this time around. Instead, he just rolled out of bed and onto the floor with a _thud_. He then slowly got dressed, slowly walked down the stairs, slowly dragged himself over to the cupboard, and slowly began to poor himself a bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, which he then proceeded to slowly eat.

It was pretty clear now that he most definitely didn't feel like getting up today. Just to make this clear point even more clear, Calvin lugged himself to the television, and sat down. Instead of reaching to the remote to turn it on, he just slid out of the chair and onto the ground.

"Are you sure we should be getting him up so early?" Mom asked. "He's all tired out from camp. Give him some more time to rest."

"Nonsense!" Dad laughed. "Some new neighbors have moved in next door, and we've got a chance to introduce him to some new friends and build some-!"

Mom glared at him. Evidently, she hadn't forgotten what he had said back at the camp.

"...Okay, we'll let him wait just a little longer." Dad concurred.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Calvin was dragged out of bed again. Like before, he didn't want to get up, but at least this time he was semi-awake. He got dressed, ate the lunch that Mom had set up, and wet out the door.

"I'm surprised they let us sleep until 12:30." Hobbes commented.

"Yeah, it's unprecedented." Calvin muttered disinterestedly.

Calvin's parents had brought him over to the house of someone who had apparently moved in that day. He vaguely seemed to remember a moving team from before, mostly because of the scolding Calvin's parents had given him after the team had gotten caught in the crossfire of a Calvinball game.

A good deal of the neighborhood parents had shown up at the new house, as well as a woman Calvin had never seen before. Her long dark hair had been tied into a ponytail, and her face looked both kind and somewhat familiar, though Calvin wasn't quite sure where.

"Huh, new face." Hobbes noted.

"Hooray." Calvin muttered. He turned around to walk away-And came face-to-face with Sakura and Nikola.

"What the-?!" Calvin jumped. "What-when-how-"

Nikola laughed. "Small world, huh? Who'd've guessed we'd be moving into _your_ neighborhood, of all places?"

"Wait, wait, wait." Hobbes held his hands up. "The people who just moved in today, that Calvin's mom and dad dragged us out of bed to see, that's you guys?"

"Yep." Sakura confirmed. "Us and my mom." She motioned to the woman that was chatting with everyone else. A crowd had gathered around her, and in the throngs of people, Calvin could see an interested-looking Susie and a decidedly less-interested Moe, among others.

"My mom wanted to get to know our new neighbors, so she held a gathering to meet them all." Sakura explained. "She's also planning to bring some people over to dinner in a couple days, too. We're hoping that everyone who comes pitches in a little."

"Hope you like fish." Nikola added. "Japan is an island with very little room for farmland, so the people there basically subsist off of fish and rice, plus whatever you can get out of the vending machines if you were born in more contemporary times. Sakura and I are from a Japanese family, so... Yeah."

Calvin made a face. Hobbes, on the other hand, was grinning so wide that if it went any further, his face would have been split in two.

"I take it my fish promise from back in the base has been fulfilled?" Nikola asked coolly.

Hobbes nodded dumbly, still entranced by the fantasy of fish.

"So... Do you think you could show us around?" asked Sakura. "It would be nice to know where everything is."

Calvin grinned widely. "Of course! There's this big forest behind our backyard-C'mon, I'll show you!"

"Wait," Nikola held up a hand. "The first thing we're going to is the _woods_?! Didn't that almost get us all killed by Doctor Madman and his mecha-mooks?"

Hobbes shrugged. "We know those woods like the back of our hands, we've been in them so much. Besides, we always seem to end up looping back around to our place anyways."

Calvin beckoned to his friends. "Hey, what are you all waiting for? It's a magical world out there, let's go exploring!"

And as the four raced to the woods, their newfound friendship was sealed.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Aaaand done! Sorry about the delay; I've recently been shifting my focus to this site called Fantendo, and that's been taking up most of my focus as of late. For those not in the know, it's basically a wiki for all your made-up game-related needs. You should go there if you have any ideas for video games floating around in your head.**

 **Another thing to note is that I've been feeling rather uninspired with my Calvin and Hobbes-verse as of late. I do intend to finish it, but I just don't have that passion when I first started. Maybe all I need is some inspiration to get that spark going again.**

 **I don't intend on leaving Fanfiction forever, so don't worry about that. I might add a bonus chapter, and I'll also be going back and touching up on some of the earlier chapters to make them a bit less awkward, so keep an eye out for that. Still, for all intents and purposes, Camp Scientist is considered complete.**

 **Again, thank you all for reading my story. I'm sure we'll meet again somewhere down the line.**

 **SharkLord out, peace!**


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